Sugar
by HowlingMad
Summary: Murdock, on a new medication trial, is excited to be broken out of the VA and whisked away into another mission with his team in Texas. But when he begins to detox, the team sees Murdock at an all time low as he goes into a manic episode and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he's been hiding so well for so long, is finally exposed.
1. What've You Done, Hannibal?

**1**

* * *

"Sugar...da da da da da dum... oh honey honey." Murdock sang melodically from his seat beside Face, "You're my candy girl...and you got me wanting you."

B.A turned from his place at the wheel, eyes deadest on the hatted man who waited in a fidgeting manner for Face to release him from the straight jacket he was currently wrapped into. He took a breath, about to release the next lyric when B.A's eyes narrowed in on him.

"Keep singin' and you'll be wantin' outta my van."

Murdock looked at him out of the corner of his eye with a pouty look on his face, "Well, some people just don't have any appreciation for my many talents, do they Faceman?" After getting no response, Murdock rolled his eyes and let out a small whine, "C'mon, Faceman...what's takin' you so long on this?"

"I'm going as fast as I can, Murdock. Look, they've got this down _pretty _tight, okay?" He laughed out of anything better to do and raised his eyebrows at the measures an orderly would go to hold their captain down. "What'd you do to get into one of these anyway, Murdock?...You know what, never mind. I don't want to know."

"No, I wasn't doing anything, and you gotta trust me on this one. Look, I was sitting down, in _my_ room last night. Same night when you guys came to pick me up. Doing nothin' but watching the little ants that come through the little window walk in a little line. And _they_..." Murdock jerked around wildly in his straight jacket to profess the amount of force they'd used, "..._wrestled _me down on the bed and strapped me in _this_ outfit!"

"Hey, sit still. Could it of been because you refused to take your night pill again, Murdock?"

Murdock went cold and narrowed his eyes, "I was blind, but now I see, you _s-s-snake_..." Murdock hissed out his last word and Face couldn't help but smile.

Laughing at his melodramatics, Face continued, "They told me you'd only be awake for another few minutes when I was giving them your release papers. Said they had to force you to take your _lights out _pill again."

"_If you'd just go to sleep at your curfew, Captain Murdock_." Murdock mocked in a high-pitched voice which brought on a few deep laughs from Hannibal as he brought a cigar to his mouth.

"Glad you find this all so funny, I'm the one that has to undo all of this for him."

With a final tug, Face released him of his hellish binds and Murdock threw his arms in the air in victory.

"Thank you, Kimosabe!"

* * *

High-heels clacked against sterile tile and a hand traced the sterile wall. Feeling faint, Nurse Belinda felt herself leaning to one side. Her first day and already she was becoming the bearer of bad news to Dr. Richter.

She bit her bottom lip, thrusting the door open and interrupted a session. She gasped and felt the regret wash over her in a tsunami just as Dr. Richter looked up. She put her manicured hands to her face at her mistake and shook, "Oh, no! I'm so sorry, Dr. Richter. I-"

Dr. Richter released a sigh, shaking his head as he put a finger up to his current patient, Seymour Jenkins, and motioned for her to leave the office. Putting both hands into his pockets, he followed her streak of shame out of the room and removed his glasses after shutting the door behind him in the hall.

"What _is _it, Nurse? Please, just make this quick."

"I'm so sorry, Dr. Richter! I-I.."

"Nurse, it's alright. It's fine, I understand you're new and the first day in a psychiatric ward can be, well..._overwhelming_...at times. Just calmly tell me what's the matter and I'm sure we can-"

"Captain M.H Murdock, sir...He's...he's gone, Doctor. His release papers say he was supposed to be transported to another hospital for blood testing and examinations by the U.S military- but I checked there and..."

Dr. Richter's obvious shock was symptomized by a pale face and shaking fingers as he put his glasses back to his face, "Wh-What? No, this...that can't be right. Who took him? Did you I.D him?"

"Nurse Joy says he was a young sort of man, uh-uh, good looking and...and in a doctors coat, of course. Blondish hair? Blue eyes? Suave looking."

Dr. Richter suddenly stopped shaking, all color returned and then some. His cheeks a fiery shade of red, his eyes narrowed and he whispered, "No...not _them_. Damn it. I _told _them..." He took a breath, shook his head and looked back up to the nurse before him, "I-...Thank you, Nurse."

"Oh, no, not at all, Doctor. I just read the file stating you were performing antidepressant trials on Captain M.H Murdock this morning, and when I went to deliver them-...well, I knew it'd be a problem if the military was unaware of Captain Murdock's trial. I mean, an unsupervised and uncontrolled detox in his mental condition would be-"

Feeling his nerves shaking inside, Dr. Richter closed his eyes and waved for her to stop.

"Yes, yes, Nurse. I'm fully aware, I'll be handling it. Everything's...under control."

She bowed her head slightly, embarrassed at her nervous ramblings and excused herself, clutching the file tighter in her hands as she turned to leave.

"Nurse? May I have that file, please? I'll have to make contact with the uh... _'military' _later."

"Oh, yes, Doctor. Absolutely. I'm sorry again."

And with a quick turn on her heels, Nurse Belinda faded again into the white sterile walls of the VA with her white sterile uniform, silently going over in her head every other job offer she'd declined for _this_.

Dr. Richter, file in hand, turned back around into the office and looked at the man sitting still like a statue in the same position he'd left him in. He relieved a sigh and put a hand to his shoulder, "Seymour, let's just...we'll meet up same time next week."

"Uh..Y-Yeah, sure, Doc."

Seymour stood, wringing his hands and moved slowly to the door.

Usually, Dr. Richter would've called in an orderly or two to escort Mr. Seymour Jenkins, but at the moment, his mind was spinning with anger and confusion and when he picked up the phone, he wasn't requesting orderlies.

"Hannibal Smith...what've you done?"

* * *

"All the way to Texas, that's right." Hannibal replied, nodding, "The money was given in full, all in advance."

B.A smiled to himself, "Hey, not too far to drive, right Hannibal?"

"That's right B.A." Hannibal replied with a small nod towards him as he looked back to the other two passengers with a quick wink.

Murdock sat up a little straighter, a twinkle in his eye at the motion- this meant he got to fly.

Freedom- he could almost feel it and taste it. He'd imagined it tasted somewhere between a marshmallow and shaving cream. Bubbly with a soft and smooth texture and the sweet taste of sugar- just like clouds.

Sitting back in an act to cover up his jolt of excitement, he looked out he window while ignoring B.A's glance in the rear view mirror.

"So, let me get this straight, because I think my thoughts are as twisted as Murdock's right now. This lady came to you because she suspects her husband kidnapped her best friend's husband who used to be a cop. He kidnapped his wife's best friend's husband because he caught him up in a burglary one time." Face repeated the story slowly, "And she's a rich and lonely housewife...how did she get a hold of us?"

"You answered that yourself. She's a _rich _and lonely housewife."

Face gave a dark smile, folding his arms and shrugging, "Alright, so how much did she give us? A piece, I mean."

"I believe it splits to about thirty thousand a piece."

Face almost choked, eyes wide, "Well then, you'll hear no more complaints from me. If we watch ourselves and do this whole job clean- we might each walk away with something."

"I ain't keepin' my hopes up. There's _ always _a reason why we ain't makin' any money." B.A replied sourly, face screwed up in an irate expression he'd had since Hannibal had called him about the case.

"B.A, you know what it sounds like you need to me? A little rest. Why don't you let me take over?" Hannibal urged, bringing the cigar from his lips, "Just pull over into this side street here."

B.A reluctantly, pulled to the side of the road and put the van into park

"And I'll just take the wh-"

The sound of an airplane over passing cut Hannibal's words short. He cleared his throat and tried again but B.A shook his head, sitting up straighter and about to put the van back into drive.

"Uh, uh. No way, Hannibal, you gonna trick me again. You said we was gonna drive!"

"Well, we are driving..."

A pin-prick in the neck and his head was once again using the horn of the car as a pillow.

"...to the airport." Hannibal finished his previous sentence with a smile and opened the car door, "Alright, Face, help me load him to the back."

Face jumped from the van after sliding the door back, lifting his legs as Hannibal grabbed his shoulders roughly and threw him into the seat beside Murdock who looked him over carefully, "H-He better be all the way knocked out. If he wakes up, I'm gonna be the one that takes the first few hits."

"Murdock, how many times have we done this?" Hannibal asked, cocking an eyebrow at his suddenly inquisitive attitude.

Wiping his hands against his coat, Hannibal closed the sliding door and slid into the driver's seat as Face slid into the passenger seat.

"I'm just saying...just saying. Billy almost didn't survive last time, you know. Just narrowly escaped and it took me _weeks _to find him again! He could smell B.A on my jacket every time I went looking for him!"

Hannibal smiled at the usual imaginative banter, and if he snuck a look at face, he'd imagine he'd be doing the same.

"Don't get me started about Thunder."

"We won't." Face replied quickly, cutting the anecdote short as Murdock folded his arms and looked out the window in a silent game of twenty questions with himself- the main question being; Where were they?

After making a turn around a hanger, Murdock was assured in himself that he knew and smiled at the helicopter before him.

"Ready to go, Murdock?"

"Always ready, Colonel." Murdock murmured jumping from the van as Face and Hannibal moved to get B.A

"Go ahead and get her ready, Captain. We're coming up the rear."

Flicking three switches and pushing a button before placing the headset onto his head, Murdock sat still, foot tapping against the floor.

As Hannibal and Face clambered aboard, struggling to pull B.A aboard, Murdock announced quickly, "Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We'll be departing ASAP."

Pushing his lips together, eyes scanning the controls, he nodded once to himself, "Yup...lookin' good...okay..."

"Ready to go when you are, Murdock." Hannibal said, releasing a breath and wiping a small line of sweat from his brow.

"Si, Capitan!"

Hesitation struck just as he reached for the throttle.

Gunfire, explosions, enemy aircraft.

_'Basil? Basil!'_

Murdock swallowed, hands releasing the throttle and taking in a silent shaky breath.

"Murdock? Any trouble?"

Murdock turned an eye to Hannibal who didn't look concerned- so he hadn't seen. Just noticed the delay.

"No! None at all, Colonel." Murdock replied quickly with an air that said _'what the hell are you even talking about?' _"Just checking everything once over..."

"Then let's get in the air- we don't want to waste too much time."

Murdock nodded once, replaced his hands on the throttle and cleared his throat when the thoughts came back from a dark alley he'd shut off so long ago, sealed the thoughts into a vault and pretended the memories didn't exist.

So what was happening?

What was this panic suddenly inside him? The anxiety and the sickly feeling crawling from the pit of his stomach?

_'These are...someone else's memories. Sure, that sounds crazy enough! I'm crazy. I'm crazy. I'm crazy.' _Like a mantra, Murdock resulted to singing it over and over as he outwardly, began a musical number involving any opera that came to mind- loud enough to throw the thoughts back again.

He also pretended to have no recollection of any _'Murdock' _and instead pretended to be called Jean Pierre, the flying acrobat extraordinaire.

It was just crazy enough to distract himself and fend off any questions Hannibal or Face might come back around with for the slight hesitation in his grip on the throttle and the shaking in his fingers.


	2. Blainely Basil

**2**

* * *

"Sugar...da da da da da dum... oh honey honey."

Face gave Murdock a look and then shook his head, looking away as though realizing his actions wouldn't make a difference where Murdock was concerned and looked to Hannibal who seemed preoccupied with loading a pistol, but a smile decorated his face so Face jumped and took the bait.

"Murdock?"

"I'm gonna make your life so sweet!" Murdock squealed in a high pitched voice and at that point.

Face held back a laugh and paused.

"C'mon. What's up with you and that song?"

Murdock stopped singing, mouth flat lining. In the back of his mind, unreachable, there was an answer. Surrounded by gunfire and blood, the answer hid somewhere behind it. He avoided the question quickly, averting his eyes to the multiple gages and flipping a switch that he knew would make no difference.

"Woah, baby, stop freakin' out on me. You're my candy girl!" Murdock yelled frantically and Face forgot the question in an instant.

"Should I get the parachutes?" He asked quickly, already half-standing in his seat, about to turn around and reach in the small compartment behind himself.

"What's wrong, Murdock?" Hannibal came in, setting the pistol into his lap in wait for a response, already in the back of his mind, he was formulating a plan.

"Uh...hold on, let's see...nothing. Was losing altitude...nothing's wrong for now." Murdock replied in a mumbled response as he looked over the gages just for good measure.

"For now, Captain?"

"Was losing altitude but nothing's wrong _now, _but this chopper isn't the newest and.." he snorted looking at the controls, "It's more like a pterodactyl than a bird."

"It was the best I could do on short notice, be grateful." Face replied, "Why couldn't we have just flown? You know, like normal people? We could've had first class and everything."

"We have a specific meeting point. No commercial airline goes to Dustbowl Air Hanger. Sorry Face, you'll just have to sit tight." Hannibal replied smoothly but the humor couldn't be shaken from his face.

"Please sit back and enjoy your flight with Air Murdock." Murdock rallied up with a sweet attendant voice that Face found almost disturbing at times- but for now, he was just itching to be on the ground.

Leaning back into his seat, he resulted to a sigh and watched out the window emphatically.

Murdock silently thought over Face's previous question again when silence was restored and nothing but the rotation of the blades sounded throughout the helicopter. He chewed idly on a piece of gum he'd gotten off Face that he was sure improved his concentration. He blew a bubble as he checked his heading.

Distracted, but not detached, he tried to bring his mind back to his job at hand. He never broke concentration while flying- it's what made him one of the best. he could carry a conversation the whole way through flying, but his mind never lingered on anything for very long and his comments would be brief and short. His eyes were always on the switches, lights, gages. Always aware of his heading, always aware.

But Face's question kept replaying in his head and he avoided answering it mentally. He knew the answer, but he wouldn't allow himself to complete the thoughts.

Gunfire, explosions ringing in his head.

'_Murdock!'_

_'Basil? Basil! N-No! No!'_

_'...ah sugar...honey honey...'_

Murdock looked frantically over the controls, blinking wildly.

Gunfire, explosions.

_'Murdock!'_

A shiver ran up his spine and he pushed the thoughts back into his head again, "We...uh..." Murdock began checking his readings, "Yuhhup...should be landing soon. Houston's comin' up."

Murdock rested back against the seat again and when the thoughts about those memories came barking up the tree again, insisting he remember, he took to singing again, this time a Mary Poppin's tune in a husky voice.

"Up through the atmosphere! Up where the air clear! When you send it soaring up there...all at once, you feel lighter than air. You can dance on the breeze, over houses and trees!"

Murdock flipped a few switches once more, checked his gages, pushed a button or two and in a wild blur of technical mess that came as second nature to the captain, Face watched with vague interest wondering how he'd managed to memorize so many controls and then a sense of fear rose in him when he heard a weak growl from beside him.

Hannibal looked over at the same point and smiled to which Face gave an expression asking if he'd completely just lost his fucking mind.

"He's waking up, Murdock." Face warned sharply, looking over to the restless bear of a man who fidgeted against the confines of a seatbelt they'd strapped him into.

"I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap-!" Murdock quickly joked, but was cut off by the melodramatics of none other than B.A Baracus.

"You tricked me, Hannibal! We in the air!"

"Oh, shit." Face whispered, putting a hand to his forehead as B.A looked around frantically, noticing there were no doors only made matters worse. The wind against his face made a sickening feeling rise in his stomach. He gave a shaky breath of air and grabbed onto Murdock who sat alone in the front seat.

"Woah, big guy!" Murdock yelled, pressed against his seat with the throttle in his hands, he felt the helicopter rise at an alarming rate, they'd stall for sure like this.

"We gonna crash!' B.A yelled, eyes squeezed shut as he begun to shake the man in his arms.

Gunfire, explosions.

_'Basil? Basil!' _

Murdock's eyes widened- mind stuck like a broken record. In the war, in the jungle, this mammoth man was holding him and preventing him from bringing his team to safety. B.A was going to kill them all. Basil, Johnson, Marston, him. He'd be damned if they crashed because of _this _of all things.

He needed to come to his senses, or they'd stall and he wasn't sure how this old rickety rust bucket would hold up then.

Reverting back to his only defense, he took on a strong military tone as Hannibal and Face from either side pulled him by the collar of his red T-shirt.

_'Y-Ya'...Johnson...Marston...what're you...? No! It's too risky!'_

_'We'll be dead for sure if we-' _

_'You will not jump from this helicopter, and that's an order!'_

"Get off of me, and that's an _order!" _B.A quickly released him, eyes wide and swallowing nervously, pulling himself away from the pilot slowly without much thought as to what he'd actually said.

His eyes were somewhere else, in a sea of confusion and delirium he felt himself slump over and then freeze back into a comatose position.

Hannibal and Face watched in shock as B.A became a frozen statue, eyes open and unblinking and then they switched their gaze over to a now silent Murdock who was tensely lowering the helicopter.

In the silence, his mind caught up with the moment and upon seeing a Houston road with a desert landscape, his mind returned back to the present like a little switch had been turned back.

Not the jungle.

Not gunfire and explosions.

Not Vietnam.

Not Basil.

Did they know? Did they know he'd just been lost in a fragment of a memory that he'd pushed away from himself nearly half his life?

_'None of it was real, Basil isn't real. You're crazy, remember?' _Murdock reminded himself quickly, and on the word Basil, found his grip around the throttle a little tighter because he knew Basil was real, and he knew he wasn't crazy.

He was remembering.

But why now, after so long? Why was his mind suddenly _now _digging up the past?

"...So where'd that come from?" Face asked suddenly and Murdock flinched at the question, "Giving orders now, Captain?"

The sarcastic question was not meant to bite but came with a gentle smile and eyes that were curious, concern could be seen behind the smile, but you'd of had to look hard and torture Face to get him to admit he felt like something was a little off.

"I'm really gonna have to apologize to the big guy when he uh...comes to. I've never..." He stuttered, at a loss of words, "I didn't want to crash all because of-...I got nervous, see, we were gaining altitude too fast, an-and we were climbing so fast we'd of stalled and you definitely don't want to stall...-"

Hannibal shook his head, hand clasping onto his shoulder, "B.A won't even remember this, so it'd _probably_ be best to just never bring it up, _Captain_." He said the word with a smile and nod at his previous transformation that he'd only ever seen once before in all his years of knowing him.

There was just once in the war that Murdock had pulled rank on a Lieutenant that was attempting to abandon his unit and above all else, suggested they left the fallen men. The final straw came when he out-right disrespected Hannibal, the superior officer. Murdock wouldn't have it and pulled rank on him while B.A cracked his knuckles.

Murdock was completely embarrassed, but if there was one thing he was grateful for, it was that they didn't know the real reason behind it, or at least they acted as if they didn't know.

Of course they didn't know.

So he pressed his lips together, sucked in a quiet breath, and let the cold sweat wash over him as he landed his helicopter and they removed a catatonic B.A from the backseat.

"That's her, right over there." Hannibal murmured, motioning with his eyes at a forty-something year old woman with too much make-up on but gorgeous blonde hair and an expensive outfit that was topped with a fur coat and sunglasses.

She stood, looking a little pressed for time, alone by a garage, watching the team as they exited the helicopter with a smirk crawling up her face trailed by bright pink lipstick, then quickly lost it when he saw Face watching her as Murdock and Hannibal attempted to wake B.A up from his statue prison.

"I really think he should just bunk with me." Murdock said suddenly giving a sigh and putting his hands on his hips, "I mean, Dr. Richter could really help him. Tell him that he's just avoiding reality, tell him he needs to face it like a man," He suddenly switched to a posh tone and added, "Etcetera...etcetera.." he smiled then frowned when he got no response out of B.A, " Would'ja like that, B.A? Huh? Staying with ol' Murdock? We'd get to know each other real well playing the long afternoons away on my Atari, we'd watch old western movies and hey, we could even do our shock therapy appointments together."

"You don't have shock therapy appointments, Murdock." Hannibal commented off-handedly as he waved a hand in front of B.A's eyes.

"I could make arrangements for my best buddy, B.A!" Murdock exclaimed, stretching his arms out to the sky, and his smile fell with still no response, "C'mon, B.A! They know me there, you know. They'll give us a nice table with a view and a _real _nice sedative that'll add some spice to the party."

Silence, but some blinking.

"What'dya say?"

Silence, but he gave an expression that lied somewhere between revolt and disgust.

Murdock smiled at the blank expression, "I'll take that as a-"

"No." B.A suddenly grumbled, rubbing his eye with an empty hand. "Where we at...? A helicopter? Hannibal, I told you I ain't flying anywhere with this crazy dude."

"We're not, B.A. C'mon, you've been asleep for hours." Hannibal comforted him with a small smile, "See? We were just meeting our client here, B.A."

"But why am I sitting on a helicopter? Where my van at?"

"Your van is fine, B.A. It's...in storage." Face nodded with a ne'er-do-well expression and a wink.

"Looong story." Murdock replied to B.A's expression of insecurity, nodding as Hannibal turned away to put a cigar in his mouth and face the woman who removed her sunglasses and begun her long-legged strut across the strip, long tanned legs glistening in the light and bouncing hair floating in the sandy winds that slid off her smooth face. She shook her hips forcefully and she had Face's interest just as soon as she narrowed her eyes at him

"I'm so glad you could make it all the way down here, and so _fast_." Her voice was harsh like little grains of sand, but sexy and just as sultry as her eyes. Her western accent intertwined with her well-educated twang of an upper crust woman who enjoyed the finer things in life, and it wasn't hard to envision her with a glass of black red wine in hand, sipping it like blood.

But her pink lips and tanned skin flushed away any vampire hostilities Murdock might have against her, and her eyes seemed to change to a pure radiance that screamed she was just a little Texan sweetheart. her stance became vulnerable and her eyebrows fell to reveal a darkening mood.

The change was sudden, but natural and the men blamed themselves of getting the wrong first impression.

Murdock looked her over with a suspicious eye, looking her up and down and thinking back to anything that could be relevant. Had he seen her before? Houston was his hometown, afterall. But it was a big city, and what was the chances that he'd seen her and would recognize her _now_. When he hadn't been there in years.

"I'm sorry, but you just...you look familiar. Have we met?" She asked, pink lips drawn into a smile.

"Uh, no ma'am. I don't believe so."

"Well, I'll be damned if I don't at least recognize the sound of a fellow Texan. Welcome home Mr...?"

"H.M Murdock ma'am. Howlin' Mad at your service." Murdock reached over and shook her hand modestly.

"So I take it you are in fact from Texas? Must be why I feel like I know you."

"Houston's actually where I grew up."

Face and Hannibal gave side glances to Murdock as B.A re-adjusted his jewelry, "If this is one of them stories you're makin' up, Fool."

"I'm not making _anything _up. I am enjoying a _normal _conversation, B.A. You could _only _classify this conversation as _normal_. Wouldn't everyone agree?" Murdock asked in a pompous tone with a flourish on every word.

Hannibal and Face nodded along and Murdock took a dramatic breath, "Thank you." He declared in a British accent and gave the now worried woman a smile.

He knew he recognized her- it wasn't just being from familiar blood or territory. Something about her made him able to anticipate her reactions and her expressions.

He felt a tinge of urgency strike his heart every time he looked in her eyes, but why, he couldn't pin-point.

"My name is Blainely Basil, and I just wanna stress how glad I am ya'll could make it and..." She brought herself down to a whisper, "...accept my offer. I've got a car ready and-"

Basil.

Murdock's heart skipped a beat.

Gunfire, explosions.

_'Murdock!' _

_'Basil? Basil!'_

"Do you have a picture of your husband, ma'am?"

"A what now?"

Hannibal looked sideways at the others and then stepped forward, removing his cigar, "A photo. Of your husband."

"Oh, oh of _course, _I do. Right and certainly I do. What kind of woman would I be without a picture of my boys?" She replied, removing her black prada purse and grabbing a small wallet. Opening it up to a picture of a man and herself on their wedding day. "An old picture, but he looks the same. Hasn't aged a day...I never suspected him of...but now he's..."

Her lips quivered and she took in a shaky breath, "It's been so long since I've been in the company of a man I could stand what with all his friends and...and..." She sniffled behind the back of her hand and bowed her head, looking up to Face for consolation who gave a pitying look and stepped forward, trailing his hand down her shoulder.

Hannibal stepped in before anything could get too risqué or endanger their lives considering she suspected her husband of kidnapping and murder, if Face was seen starting a romance with his wife, the turnout of that, Hannibal was assured of, would be deadly.

"Ma'am, if there's one thing you can count on, it's that you've hired the best. Let me introduce the rest of the team. This is Face, Murdock, and B.A. We're here to help, so tell us anything you think might be relevant and we'll start immediately."

She began talking about how for the past year, she'd been suspecting her husband of _something_. They'd been poor, and after he got a new job offer of providing transport for rich old men, he quickly moved up the corporate ladder, or at least, that's what he told her. Promotion after promotion turned into business dinner after business dinner. Fur coats when she asked any questions, a credit card with unlimited funds in the bank and all the luxury and aristocracy a girl ever dreamed of as a little girl would always put her in her place. But a few weeks ago, her husband came home bloody and exhausted- he didn't talk for days.

Then the next week, her best friend's newly wed husband turned up missing. She began to put the pieces together, or so she thought. She was sure her husband was a hired gun, and using his resources, kidnapped her best friend's better half as an act of revenge for something that had happened years between them.

She promptly apologized for having to go through her long story right there in the dusty wind, but that anywhere else wasn't safe. Everything was bugged except her clothing and the new car she'd just bought to pick them up in- she claimed to of checked everything before leaving the dealership and she was sure she was clean after finding one in the lapel of her massive fur coat.

"I have files." She said after a moment of silence, her voice was quiet against the wind, "I can get you some of Chuck's files. It won't be easy, I'll have to get them to ya'll tomorrow. I'm sorry for the setback. I-..I'll double your pay."

"That won't be-" Hannibal begun.

"-..unappreciated! That won't be unappreciated. Thank you, Ma'am." Face replied, giving her a wink that sent the smallest blush to her cheeks and she smiled back at him.

"Well if ya'll ain't just the cutest boys..." She replied with a little laugh, "I have rooms set up for you at a hotel. I'll drive y'all down there now, and tomorrow...tomorrow I'll get you those files right quick. I didn't think about 'em 'till now, I'm just so lost lately."

She started towards a garage, hitting a button on the side and it began to open to reveal a bright red Berlinetta. Sliding her fur coat off, she revealed a tight black tube skirt and a bright red tank-top of which beneath, she was obviously bra-less.

She replaced her sunglasses onto her face and slid into the drivers seat, starting the engine up with a smooth roar.

Face attempted to jump in the passenger seat, but Hannibal raised an eyebrow and he quickly found himself dismissed to be on one side of B.A and Murdock was on the other, staring at the back of her head.

Gunfire, explosions...

_'Murdock! Murdock, we're under-' _

_Gunfire._

_'Basil? Basil!'_

_'Ah sugar...honey honey...'_

_Murdock reached to try and turn off the track._

_Evasive maneuver...Coming in too strong...They were swarmed..._

_'Pour some sugar on me...pour a little sugar on me baby...'_

_'Basil, talk to me, Man!'_

_Silence._

_Silence except gunfire._

_'Basil!'_

Murdock found himself shaking, a growing nausea hit him like a ton of bricks.

Hannibal and Blainely were engaged in a conversation- maybe a plan?

_Gunfire, gunfire, gunfire._

_Charlie._

_Oh God, where were Marston and Johnson going? Jumping out would be suicide._

_'No! Don't!' _

_Gunfire, gunfire._

_'Johnson...? Marst-...Basil? Basil! Basil, talk to me, Man!'_

"Sugar, is something the matter?"

_'Sugar...oh honey honey...'_

His heart thudding against his rib cage amplified against his jacket but Murdock jerked up at the question, but noticed her eyes were directed at B.A.

"You didn't seem well at the airport."

Murdock swallowed back anything else wanting to come up.

Why now? Why now? Everything coming back at full force, breaking the wall he'd carefully laid brick by brick. He sealed it off and defended it with his creative delusions that he'd throw at anyone getting just a little too close to his wall.

It was _his _wall.

He'd always been a little off, since he was young he'd been known as the crazy one with all the untimely singing, obscure quotations and references, the accents and the little quirks that he was sure he'd been born with. He was _born _a little crazy, some wiring must've not been right. He never would claim to be normal, because he simply wasn't. He hadn't been born with nor could he ever learn or understand the idea of charm like Face grasped onto so easily. He'd never been serious and sensible like B.A. He couldn't even dream of being the focused leader Hannibal was.

He was what many people would put lightly as _'creative' _in many ways. He had his reasoning behind his ideas, opinions, plans. They were all unorthodox and eyebrow raising and maybe not so sensible, but he wasn't dead yet, was he?

He'd hallucinated very few times in his life, and the thought of that made Murdock want to at least give a smile. Most people figured once was too many. But now, he had hallucinated before. Not dogs or horses, but people he'd once known. Voices at night, sometimes, echoed off his walls from the war. Screaming for help, for mercy. That was when he was very tired or was remembering- something he hated. Sometimes though, he caught their figures in his peripheral vision when he was far from reality and deep into the dark pit of a terrible memory.

But usually, _usually_, that required a pretty strong trigger.

Like old sound recordings of the war, or film reels of a particularly brash battle.

But now he was sitting there doing nothing, and it was hitting him like a ton of bricks.

B.A replied something offhandedly that suggested he was invincible and Blainely became quiet, "That's what Blake said..."

"What's that?" Hannibal asked, straining his ear against the wind.

"Oh, nothing. I'm sorry. Just...just an old friend of mine thought that same way your friend here does. Invincible...couldn't be touched...thought he was protected by the hand of God!"

"Something happen to him?" Face asked and Blainely released a soft breath of air.

"It was that attitude that got him killed...I'm sorry. You must think I'm so depressing."

"Well, you could change my opinion." Face suggested with a cool look on his face that rebelled against the sun that made his suit into a personal sauna.

"Really?"

"Well, yes. It'd be easy. Maybe tonight we could-"

"Face." Hannibal drew the line deep and quick, "Later."

"Lookey there!" Blainely yelled out, pointing towards a green sign in the side of the beaten road, "Welcome to Houston, Boys."

A silhouette showed the city in a grandiose view against the setting sun, and from their spot, Murdock was sure he could smell the leather from his father's shoes again, the soft cries of coyotes far out from the city, the dusty smell of a stable that stuck to the ranchers and that you could smell no matter how many times they washed their clothing. For a moment, Murdock could feel relaxed again at these thoughts.

But the thought of home brought on other memories he'd pushed to the back of his mind evicting him from his safe place quickly.

Visions of his mother, dying in a bed with blood across her dress and a lung rattling cough filled the screen behind his eyes and he blinked the thoughts away.

He tried to remember a little later on from that point, maybe a year or two, when his father met another woman who was nice and caring, but hardly his mother. She told him she understood and reminded him that she'd always think of him as her son. Murdock confided in her once on their porch during the spring and told her that if she'd been his real mother, he would've been proud to call her Mom, but he couldn't. Not when she wasn't really his mother. It felt wrong to replace the word with another person attached to it's memory.

He loved her, just as much as his real mother.

He couldn't call _her _Mom. It'd of been like calling his friend Tommy, Dan after Dan had moved away. Murdock tried it, but Tommy reminded him he was crazy and Murdock decided then, it was not possible to switch out one mother for another.

He couldn't do it.

So his happy place could certainly not be there.

Dr. Richter had told him once that if he ever felt distressed or caught up in a memory, which Dr. Richter knew he did but Murdock never released such information to him, that he should just find a happy place- somewhere he felt safe and at peace until he felt comfortable enough to come back to reality.

He used the A-Team van typically, with everyone inside it. Laughing and eating burgers from Captain Bellybuster.

That had always worked before, in the middle of the nights when he woke up from a bad dream that he could only half remember being about some Charlie and helicopters and guns...

He'd remember the team, the van, the burgers.

He'd calm down.

He tried _now_ to think of the van, the team, the burgers- but it wasn't working.

His heart was still fluttering and he closed his eyes momentarily to try and talk to himself from inside, remind himself everything was okay. There was no Charlie, no guns, and no explosions.

"Your hotel's in the city- I hope that's okay. I didn't wanna set you up at a _motel_ or anything. Don't you worry though, my husband won't be around there."

"That's awfully kind of you." Face reminded her, already letting the thought of relaxation for the night sink in. Maybe he'd wander down to a bar and meet a fine little lady in a little black dress and flash a smile or two around the place and bring one lucky lady up to his room and-

"Oh, but there _was _a shortage of rooms and I got the last room-with two queens, so looks like y'all 'ull be sharin'! Hope you don't mind. There's a convention in town and they were booked _solid _all this week."

Murdock, distracting himself quickly, figured it was the month of April and deducted it must've been the golfing tournaments while Face sunk deeper into the leather of the car, slashing his plans mentally into tiny shreds.

"Ehh..." He propped one hand beneath his hand, looking out the window in a miserable way, "...ohhh..." He groaned.

"April golfing tournaments, right?"

Blainely looked into her rear view window and gave a large smile, "Hey, yeah, that's right. That was it. Yeah, you'd probably know that though. You said you used to live here, didn't ya'?"

"Oh, uh, yes, Ma'am. Sure did. See, B.A?"

B.A grumbled something he couldn't hear.

"Where'd you live? Towards the city?"

"Uh, no. No, I lived far out from the city."

"You were a farmer?"

Murdock shook his head again, "No, last time I was here...I was probably eighteen. My _father _was a farmer...never very successful. The drought and all..." Murdock laughed shyly, taking his hat off and twisting it in his hands.

_Blood all over her dress, and no water to give her for her fever induced thirst. The dehydration is what really killed her they said, it was the kicker._

"Oh, you'll be wanting to see your family while you're here then! Good golly, I'd just be so broken up if I hadn't seen _my _son for that long of a time. That'll be so nice. Do they still live on a farm, or did they move into the city like most farmers during the drought? See, my daddy was a farmer too, and we moved into the city when I was ten because of the drought and all."

Murdock felt the questions penetrating his sacred walls and wondered briefly if he should either act insane, but it would be too sudden now. He'd been being as civil as a Murdock could- more than likely because of the anxiety built up on him, so he smiled a little and put his head into his hand.

"What kinda farmer was he?" Murdock asked, smoothly avoiding her question with ease as she dove into the various crops he had planned to grow and the livestock they had growing up.

Murdock couldn't relate- he'd been born into a poor family. When the drought came, nothing had been taken away and it all was just life. He was younger than Blainely, and when the drought had come, he barely understood what it meant when other farmers were selling their farms around him left and right.

Face was half asleep by the time they'd pulled into the hotel's valet service and had to be shaken with a hand by Hannibal to be stirred from the seat.

Stretching, Face gave Murdock a dirty look. "Great conversation starter, Murdock. I was sitting there thinking through the hour of traffic...no way can she say _one _more thing about corn, but she certainly surprised me!"

"Well, I'm so sorry if agriculture might be an interesting topic that you do _not _understand." Murdock retaliated, "Or should I say, _could _not understand, Good Sir?"

Face rolled his eyes and released a sigh, grabbing his bag of luggage, only for it to be taken by a bellboy soon enough once they'd checked in and as Blainley said her goodbyes and thank yous all over again, the team found themselves in the safety of an elevator, making their way to the one room they'd forgotten they'd have to share.

The concierge had looked at them strangely when he found their reservation was for only one room through the week, and four men were to share it, and they certainly didn't look like golfers.

" We're golfers." Hannibal offered the man when he looked at them up and down with confusion, "Don't you recognize him? Charleston Histon?" Hannibal pointed towards Face who flashed a smile without the teeth to showcase his impeding impatience at the situation Hannibal had created. "I'm his golf coach? You should certainly recognize me. I'm Robert Aldrich? I play pro for forty years and this is what I have to show for it. A small entourage and no credibility."

"And I believe _this _is an outrage! What sort of golfing world is it when the man you've believed in for so long isn't even recognized anymore?" Murdock yelled in a sordid cry of disbelief. "All of the treason! Treason! The absolute tyranny of rugby will overthrow our conquer!"

"Charleston Histon, you said? Robert Aldrich? Oh, no, I definitely recognize those names! So sorry, so sorry, sir. It's _wonderful _to have you here. Please, I hope you'll find everything perfect, but if something _is _wrong, please don't hesitate to call down. I'll take care of it personally." He handed Face the room key and they filed into an elevator with smirks on their faces.

"In the wild west...a mysterious new hero rises and must overthrow the villain whose secretly been the bane of everyone's existence in this here town for so many years..." Murdock murmured, dramatizing his Texan accent to it's full effect.

"You gonna mysteriously _vanish_ after I throw you through a window, Fool. Don't start all that make-believe."

"Make believe? I _never _make believe..." Murdock replied dangerously as the doors dinged open and followed up on B.A's trail. "...I am the hero of many tongues, many backgrounds, and many faces. All the same man, so many crimes...so little time, B.A. So...little..._time_..."

"It's not exactly fiction when you think through it, B.A" Hannibal replied directly and after a minute, B.A looked back at Murdock who crept against the wall.

A few passerby's looked nervously at the man who lowered his ball cap and crept along the sides of the halls in a comical fashion- but to the golf enthusiast type, this was all becoming very obscene and offensive.

"We _don't _want to draw attention to ourselves, Murdock." Hannibal reminded the Captain who slammed himself against the wall and lowered his hat even further, "I'm a shadow of the night..."

"Hall stalkin' Fool." B.A murmured beneath his breath, giving a second glance behind him at the man who raised his eyebrows at the eye contact. "I ain't sharin' a bed with him, Hannibal."

"Easy, Sergeant." Hannibal warned, "C'mon, we're almost to the room."

"Aw, c'mon, B.A! When're you gonna realize we were just meant to be bed bunkin' buddies! Huh? How long are you gonna just push it away?"

"until I figure out how to push _you _away. I ain't no bed bunkin' whatever you just said."

Arriving at the room, Face turned the key in it's lock and opened the door to reveal a recently cleaned room stocked with bubble bath, warm towels, and fresh food in the fridge.

hauling in their respective bags and settling them down all around the room, everyone sat down carefully with the exception of Face who pulled back the curtain, and his mood became ever more sour.

"That view..." he groaned, looking over the buzzing view of Houston with a sunset peaking behind the skyscrapers they faced, "Would'ja look at that view? Would've been a real lady catcher..."

Hannibal turned on the television for some background noise and noticing the captain getting comfortable on the couch, eyes watching the TV, he handed the remote off to him, and he switched the channel to a re-run of The Range Rider.

it became silent except the cheesy dialogue and fake gunshots that rang through the room, and Murdock quickly got bored with the re-run he wasn't sure why they kept replaying.

Changing it to a game show, he yelled out the answers to the puzzles on the Wheel of Fortune and continued getting them right in a blaze of fire that even B.A half-admired, sitting on the bed.

Not that he saw much value in it, but it was the novelty of it and it brought a smile to his face.

"Now what do we do?" Face asked, beginning to feel hungry and hoping his question would lead to someone offering to cook dinner in the kitchenette.

"Pick up some dinner?" Hannibal offered.

Not exactly feeling like moving from his position in a chair by an office-like table, he looked towards the kitchen and pointed, "We've got a stocked fridge. Shame to let it go to waste."

"You're cooking, Lieutenant?"

"So what we're you thinking? Chinese...Mexican...Italian?"

Hannibal smiled at his change of heart and stood abruptly, B.A and Face following suit. "Right. Murdock, let's-...Murdock."

Murdock blinked in response, looking up hazily from the TV sceen. "Uh...yeah?" He responded with little certainity of the situation as he'd spaced out a long time ago, coaxing the wheel they spun to get the jackpot.

Hannibal gave a sigh.

"Looks like he's settled in. We're bringing back pizza, Murdock. Mushroom and pepperoni...am I right?"

Hannibal, knowing the answer, passed by the television set and got a distant, "...uh huh..." In response after a moment.

"Captain."

"Wh-..." He turned from the TV, "Yeah?"

"You're guarding the room. We're picking up pizza. We'll be back soon."

Murdock gave a smile and a nod to signify he'd heard him truly this time.

"Sure thing, Colonel. Nothin' gonna happen on my watch."

* * *

**REVIEWS are appreciated!**

**Leave a line or two, and I'll be debt to you.**

**Sorry if this is a little long. I usually write somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 words. This is about 6,300. Wooooweeeee! Doggie! **


	3. Beginning to Detox

**3**

* * *

The fan above him became the helicopter blades, whistling above his head until they became so fast that it became a solid disk.

The breeze from it washed over him from above, and he closed his eyes to try and block out any other type of stimulus. He just wanted to feel the cool air on his face, not the memories that would come with it.

Behind his eyelids, he could still see a memory that floated by- it was his second worst experience in the war.

Another helicopter had been at a higher altitude, one of the passengers jumped with a parachute, meaning to land on solid ground, instead he landed into the blades of his own helicopter, ripping him to pieces. Blood slid down his windshield in a blindfold across Murdock's eyes and shakily, he jerked back on the throttle. It was too late.

It took minutes to wash the blood from the windshield, but it took months to wash the blood from his own hands. The other helicopter pilot was reprimanded seriously for negligence, but no one had said a word to Murdock, and a few generals even pat him on the back in sympathy for what he'd witnessed, but Murdock had always felt disgust by the sympathy he didn't believe he deserved.

He felt something deep down inside him ache again and his stomach turned over.

He flipped his whole body over, thinking that if his stomach flipped and he flipped, maybe it'd make it right again. It wasn't an exactly reasonable theory, but he tried it in hopes that it would help. He changed back to his former position just as soon as he'd done it, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

Looking back up at the fan, the start-up of a helicopter erupted in his mind and the thud of the wind rhythmically vibrated in his ears.

The gunfire from the television western brought him back to the scene in his mind.

_Gunfire, explosions, Basil._

_'Basil? Basil! Talk to me. Basil, talk to me. Talk to me, Captain! C'mon...h-hey, y-you said you were gonna go see your girl when you got back? Right? Remember? What was her name, Basil? Basil?'_

_Murdock looked over briefly, watching the man slump in the seat, 'Basil!'_

_He snatched the photo from his limp hands and looked down at it. _

Murdock jerked from the memory, an electric shock hit his brain and brought a wracking sensation of pain across his back.

_'No, Man! That's my sister, Blainely.'_

The nausea overtook him, filling his head with a white light as he rolled from the couch and ripped the door open to the bathroom, sliding to his knees on the cold tile and letting his head fall over the side of the toilet.

Could she be?

_Gunfire._

He wretched and his breakfast at the VA came up.

_'Where you goin' after all this?'_

_'Me? No plans. What about you?'_

_'Well...I got Ava. Figure I'll start on...on a family, you know?'_

He wretched and nothing but acid was coming from him this time.

he wrapped his arms around his midsection, feeling himself begin to shake inside.

"Get outta my head." He whispered.

_'Murdock!'_

_Blades spinning, bullets blowing holes in their fuel tanks, explosions littered the jungles. _

_'Basil!'_

He pulled his hat off of his head, tears beginning to crawl down his face and he couldn't stop his body as it involuntarily begun to force him to heave again. Acid. Burning acid in his throat.

Like ammonia.

_'Basil? B-...Basil, there's...there's ammonia every...ev-...heh...everywhere.'_

_A voice told him to move, he had to get going and ignore the stinging in his eyes and he hissed in pain at the bullet that had got him in the shoulder._

_He looked over at the passenger, turning his head slowly with an expressionless face. 'Basil. Talk to me.' He asked weakly, swallowing down his sob. 'C'mon, man. You gotta be alive. You just gotta be...'_

_His torn face looked oddly at peace, his body was calmer than he'd ever seen it. _

_'What about Ava?_ _Well, doesn't she mean anything to you?' He screamed, and he was half-assured that Charlie would jump from the bushes at the sound of his voice, 'Get up! C'mon!'_

_When there was no reply, he took in a shaky breath, pain soaking his heart when he was sure Basil wasn't going to move._

_He thought maybe, if he watched for a long enough time, he'd see the rise of his chest and he could at least have a shot at saving him._

_There was nothing._

"Murdock? Hey, get the door! We've got pizza!" Face called from behind the door, banging noisily against the hotel door.

Murdock quickly attempted to stand but fell back again to his knees and he looked up nervously at the open bathroom door where'd they would walk by first and them seeing him would be inevitable.

Like this, they'd see him.

Pitiful.

Through his double vision, he reached an arm out and searched for which one of the handles was the actual handle in a sad attempt to flush the evidence.

"He's probably watching a movie, I can hear the western music from here." Face said as a key turned in the lock and Murdock's mouth quaked. "At this rate, we'll be kicked out before morning."

He'd have to give up, let them see him like this.

He looked towards the narrow little hall right outside the door.

He could still close the door if he hurried, couldn't he?

He turned to look at the door, with the idea to crawl and close it but found the that jerking his head made him dizzy and this turned into another wave of agony in the pit of his stomach.

He leaned over the toilet bowl and as the three men, each carrying a pizza came down the hall they saw him.

Him, over the toilet bowl, face deep in and puking. He took a shaky breath, closing his eyes.

"Murdock." Face reacted quickly, and Hannibal shoved his pizza box into B.A's hands, walking quickly into the bathroom and bending down beside him.

Face pushed his box into B.A's hands too and B.A dropped the boxes onto the table Face had been sitting at just an hour before when they'd gotten up to leave.

Finding the pizza place hadn't been the only issue. The influx of people brought in long lines and long waits, not to mention traffic- whether on foot or by taxi.

Face folded his arms, scrutinizing his form and looking at the trail of sweat trickling down his paling neck, he swallowed his concern to be able to react should he be needed for anything.

"Oh, hey guys. No, no. This? This...this is nothin'. Just got...little air sick."

His conscious response set most worries at bay, but excuse made Hannibal smirk.

"Air sick?" Face asked, "You? Of all people?"

Hannibal put a hand on his shoulder, about to suggest that he stand up and wash his mouth out and then tell him ginger ale would help even though he doubted that what he claimed was what was really wrong, but Murdock tensed at the contact.

"Oh, no. No, don't touch me, Colonel. Get's me all fuzzy again..."

Hannibal's eyes squinted.

"How long have you been flying, Murdock?" Hannibal asked in a firm tone.

"...A long time...Colonel." Murdock knew what he was suggesting.

"It's like a fish getting sea sick." Face commented dryly with a furrowed brow and Hannibal looked pointedly at Face.

"My point exactly, Face." Hannibal continued, "If you're coming down with something, it's best just to admit it, Murdock."

Murdock felt elated suddenly.

Coming down with something? Sure! In the morning, he knew he'd feel better. _Hopefully_ he would, anyway. Maybe he just needed sleep. Then he'd just say it was a twenty-four hour bug. He'd say he'd felt funny all day yesterday. A perfect excuse and tomorrow could be his fresh start.

Murdock murmured, "I...I guess you're right."

A phone ringing cut the intensity and B.A picked it up, asking who it was, and then replied they had the wrong room number '_suckah'_ and placed it back in the cradle.

Footsteps told them he was coming.

B.A stood in the door jam, "He okay, Hannibal? He don't look okay."

"Don't you worry 'bout me, Big Guy." Murdock drawled with a smug tone, "Didn't think you cared so much."

B.A opened his mouth, eyes open wide like a child that had just got caught stealing from their parents but his expression changed just as quick as it had come and settled on a flat-lined mouth and pinched eyes.

"I don't, Fool. If I gotta share a bed with you, I don't wanna get sick."

"Well don't you worry...nothin' to worry 'bout me for..."

"Murdock, let's try and get you to a bed." Hannibal offered.

Murdock felt the dread rise inside of him at the thought of moving and he took a shaky breath, knowing that if he protested it would only cause more worry, so nodding, Face and Hannibal took either arm, slowly bringing him to his feet. B.A took up the back, ready to catch him if he somehow managed to trip backwards. Even forwards, he knew he could lunge out and grab him.

_He took Basil by either arm, gently pulling him from the smashed seat of the helicopter._

"Who was on the phone, B.A?" Hannibal asked, letting the captain sit onto the bed and toe his own shoes off.

"I dunno. Some suckah named Allan."

Not recognizing the name, Hannibal pushed the thought away for later and watched as Face carefully helped Murdock pull his leather jacket off.

"D-Don't lose it, Faceman." Murdock murmured, "Put it some where safe."

Face looked at him strangely, "I will, Murdock. Don't worry."

"Put it on the couch."

Knowing one of them would be sleeping there if Murdock's condition was bad enough, he looked to the foot of the bed.

"I'll put it at the foot of the bed."

Closing his eyes slowly, he felt a wave of cold take him somewhere dark and Murdock became silent.

Hannibal came around the bed, putting his hand to his forehead. "He's getting hot." Hannibal said, any humor he'd had earlier was gone, and he released a breath, "He might be getting a fever. If this is serious-..."

The phone rang again and Hannibal moved from Murdock's bedside, snatching the phone off the cradle and bringing it to his ear, "Hello?"

"Hannibal."

Hannibal's blood ran cold. He didn't recognize the voice, but he began putting it to threatening faces at the tone of it. He breathed impatiently to give a front of indifference and gave a sigh, "You've got the wrong-"

"You took my patient without my permission. You're a very hard man to find and it took extensive work, I'll tell you. You saved my life, but that doesn't mean you can just take Murdock whenever you like. He isn't shared property. I don't know why you have to play these stunts with your team, Colonel Smith, and if you'd of just asked, I could of calmly set up a way to allow you a pass for Murdock for a couple of days. You make it so damned difficult!"

"Nice to hear from you too, Doc."

Hannibal relaxed at the ramble and the doctor gave a heavy sigh, which Hannibal could see being accompanied by a long chug of scotch.

"Dr. Richter? It's you, Dr. Richter, isn't it?" Hannibal asked in a perfectly innocent tone, toying with a cigar in his pocket.

"Well, who else?" He exclaimed, "Hannibal, what've you done?" He asked suddenly in desperation, "Do you stop to ask yourself that question ever? I've been thinking over that phrase all day today, and I can't seem to get it out of my head."

"Just calm down, Doc. You're starting to sound like you might need some..well, therapy. We bring him back, we always do. We'll have him back at the VA by-"

"That's not what I'm concerned about, don't you _see_?" His anger rose again and then slowly washed away in the form of a suppressed growl, "How's Murdock doing? Be honest with me, Smith. Has he been acting strangely? Any symptoms at all?"

Hannibal looked back at the man in the bed, covered in a blanket and shivering, teeth clenched together. "He might have a fever."

B.A looked down at Murdock at the same time while Face watched with folded arms, eyes fixated on the phone in attempting to guess what Dr. Richter might be able to offer as to an explanation for their teammates condition.

The western music pouring from the television came in loud drums and deafening whistles suddenly and Murdock flinched in his sleep fitfully. Face walked up to the television quickly, but B.A, who was two steps ahead, yanked the cord from the wall.

Face gave him an eyebrow raise that suggested his actions were slightly overkill and then raised his hands in defeat when B.A glared.

"He's _detoxing_." Dr. Richter replied, and then in a hushed voice whispered, "Damn it, I knew this would happen."

"Detox-...?" Hannibal became at a loss of words, "You _knew _this would happen, Doc?"

"_Yes, _detoxing. If you'd of told me you needed him, I could've at the _least_ prescribed a bottle for the week for you to take with..."

"Don't try and make this out to be my fault, Doctor. We've been springing Murdock from the VA before you ever showed-"

"Oh, and it's _my _fault for attempting to cure my patient?"

"Cure him of _what_? Murdock's Murdock, Doctor, and as much as you'd like to believe there's a cure to _that, _there isn't. Both of us have agreed before that Murdock is perfectly sane." There was a smile in Hannibal's words even if it didn't make it to his face, his tone suggesting that Dr. Richter was overdramatizing the entire event.

"Yeah, well not exactly perfect." Dr. Richter replied, "Why would I keep him here if I thought there was _something _he needed work with? No, let me explain. I've been putting Murdock on an antidepressant trial for about two weeks now, he's been taking a specific dosage everyday-"

"Murdock isn't depressed." Hannibal replied straight-forward, "Look, Doc, he might have his moments-"

Hannibal drifted on the word depressed, thinking back to the one time when he thought the word depressed might relate to Murdock even in the slightest.

It was right after Face, B.A and himself had escaped and Murdock had been discharged on the basis of insanity. Other men, when seeing this, would've bowed their head in sympathy to their comrade. Hannibal and them had smiled- because they knew Murdock. They knew how easily people could mistake Murdock's _'unique' _personality as insanity. Hell, they had done it the first time they'd ever met him.

They all had made first impressions that turned out inaccurate.

Everyone took Hannibal for a die-hard patriot with sass crossed from his dictionary and a manual firmly in hand.

They took Face for a pretty boy with no other options in life- who had no idea what he was getting into or what it meant to die for your country.

They assumed B.A was the muscle with nothing much else on his mind but murder, they figured the military was his only way to take flight on a murder spree.

And Murdock, at first, they truly marked as insane. None of them trusted him, even after reading his impeccable file. They figured he slipped past evaluations by the skin of his teeth because he knew somebody who got him past the system. They certainly didn't think he was capable of much of anything when he was singing German operas and quoting TV shows.

Of course, over the course of a single year they found out every judgment they'd made about each other had been nothing but wrong. It was true that Hannibal was a patriot, and Face was a pretty boy, B.A was the muscle, and Murdock was slightly unhinged- but there was more to them than just that.

So when they saw he was discharged for insanity, they actually laughed. They laughed right at the papers that Face had scammed and they made their way to LA, waltzed right into the VA hospital at night and expected a bumbling Captain with a big smile across his face at the sight of them springing him. Face scammed a key, a few doctor's coats and entered Murdock's room.

It was bare at the time, nothing to make it even relatively Murdock. He was sitting on his bed, staring at the white ground with his leather jacket in his lap. When he looked up, his eyes flashed panic and he cried out for them to escape while they had a chance.

B.A assumed quickly that the facility may've been being abusive and that's what he meant by escaping. B.A started cracking his knuckles, asking who'd done it, and then Murdock said something about Charlie, he started going off in Vietnamese and Hannibal figured out quickly, he wasn't there in that stark white sanitary room.

He was in Vietnam again, in a helicopter maybe, on foot maybe, in the POW camp even. It was hard to tell because he wasn't completely fluent in Vietnamese and what he understood was broken and chopped up. But Hannibal knew that Murdock was watching his men fall, wherever he was by his dire attempts to make them leave the area.

Hannibal had seen that sort of thing happen once before in another man, but it had been worse. The other man, Dan Bowsky, a former General, never came out of his delusions.

Fear had rose in Hannibal when he'd seen Murdock like that, but was soon relieved when he slowly came from his fit and realized with full awareness he'd gone into a memory.

He never saw Murdock that way again, but for at least a month after, Murdock wasn't himself. He tried to smile, but it didn't make it to his eyes. Murdock's doctor at that time took little notice to any affairs of his patients, but soon was fired for incompetence- Hannibal would deny having anything to do with that.

It wasn't until the A-Team came to be that Murdock was himself again.

Hannibal and the others were so convinced Murdock had made a full recovery, Hannibal had never worried about that incident again. Knowing Murdock felt safe at the VA and understanding there was always the freak chance that something like that could happen again, he never suggested Murdock leave the hospital. After all, it was easy to spring him from it whenever he so chose to do so, and he was always assured that _if _something like that should _ever _happen again, someone would be there for him if they couldn't be.

Hannibal was suddenly filled with questions- had he done that again? Had he slipped into a memory and struggled to re-surface to the present? What had triggered it? Would anti-depressants solve it?

"His moments?" Dr. Richter asked, "Hannibal? Hannibal, are you-"

"Yes,...Yeah, I'm here. What I mean is...Murdock can sometimes be a little...absurd, but we both know that's just how he-"

"No, if I thought Murdock was truly crazy, I'd have him on antipsychotics. I have him on _antidepressants_, but wait. Let me explain. I don't have him on antidepressants because I believe he's _depressed_. I have him-...I _had _him on antidepressants to create a sense of euphoria. Are you following me?"

"I think I can keep up, Doc."

"It was working, too. He was..._very _happy and comfortable and-."

"You drugged him."

"For good reason, Colonel! For good reason. Don't be so narrow-minded!"

"Enlighten me, Doc."

"Listen, just for a moment. I've been Murdock's doctor for some time now, and everytime I've even _attempted _to talk about Vietnam, he quickly goes off about his dog, Billy, which mind you, is invisible. Or his horse, Thunder. Going on about how they're bothering him. You know, barking? Neighing? Have you ever entertained the thought that maybe Captain Murdock is _conveniently _hallucinating these animals? To push away reality is what I mean, Smith. Do you see what I'm saying? We both know that he doesn't truly hallucinate these animals, sure, sure. We've discussed before that he uses them for fun, or to discuss things with people in an indirect way, or to cope in situations he's uncomfortable with. But now I see he's deliberately using them to avoid one subject: Vietnam."

"Murdock deals with things a little different than most. No one enjoys talking about 'Nam, it's not exactly a conversation starter, Doc."

"No, no. You're not _listening_, Hannibal. Fine, so you don't want to talk about Vietnam. But would you go as far as to pretend insanity? Listen...have I ever discussed with you the word _ammonia_?"

"Ammonia?"

"Yes, ammonia. Do you have any connection with it?"

"Well, it was sometimes used in 'Nam for-"

"See that? See that, now? Now, why would Murdock hate the word ammonia if it doesn't bring back something?"

"He hates the word ammonia...?" Hannibal replied disbelievingly.

"Yes. He's gotten physically _ill _from the word ammonia once before. I've done my research. I know that ammonia was often used in Vietnam as a sort of gas weapon. It's the only connection I've been able to make with Murdock and ammonia. I asked him once if he missed flying helicopters? Planes? Etc. He claimed to miss it. I asked him if he missed the war, as some veterans admit to such things. He got nervous but said no. I asked him if he had any interesting stories he could share. He suddenly complained about his dog barking too loud to hear me. I asked him in another session what his jacket said. He answered De Nang 1970. I asked if he got it while in Vietnam. His horse suddenly needed to be walked. I asked him another time what ammonia meant to him. He begun to sweat, pace the floors, and even started to _yell_. He _yelled _that Billy, his dog, wasn't getting enough dog food around here. Doesn't this all seem coincidental? A little..._too _coincidental? Everytime Vietnam is brought up, he...he acts like a madman, Hannibal."

"So what're antidepressants going to do? Make him forget? You can't make a man for-"

"Oh, no. No, no. On the contrary. The antidepressants made him _unafraid_. They made him as you said. _Drugged_. He started to talk to me. Some of it nonsense, but some of it was real, you see. Real pieces of information relating to Vietnam. We were reaching a _breakthrough_. Once I knew a little more, he could've slowly come off the drugs. We'd have a normal session, and I'd get around to talking about the information he told to me. I'd say I read a file detailing all this information and I'd press him to simply elaborate since I already knew and_ talk through_ the experiences- well...don't you see? Don't you see that this was the _only _way?"

"We all avoid talking about it, and it's his right to keep it to himself."

"Even if it's hurting him?"

"He was fine before _you _decided what was right for him, Doctor. What would be the point in forcing a confession out of him?"

"You should all think of therapy sessions. Holding in pain is never good for the mind, Hannibal."

"No, it's not. But forcing someone to reveal their privacy, especially when it's things you could never understand, is like forcing a nun to strip naked and burn her bible."

Dr. Richter was silent at the analogy, mouth drying. He could sense the anger in Hannibal's voice.

"I understand you're angry, but you have to understand that this is something _you _could never understand. The science of the mind is complex-"

"The science of war is _just_ as complex, Doctor. I know and you know that Murdock isn't insane. We also both know he doesn't think..._normally_. So what more of a breakthrough do you _need_? Murdock is Murdock and the only men that talk about their experiences in 'Nam, are the men that haven't seen _half _of what we've seen."

Dr. Richter fell silent, a heavy burden suddenly falling onto his chest.

He touched the newspaper on his desk tenderly.

So many nights he had sat in that same study in his house, looking at the newspaper on his desk with a smile on his face when he thought about the eventual breakthrough he'd _force _Murdock to make and the headlines that would picture his name when they detailed the number of breakthroughs he'd actually made that year at the VA. How _many _men he'd cured.

He'd gotten so lost in the strive for some form of fame and recognition for his work, he'd forgotten that these men were people. People who'd served and protected their country. He was getting old and beginning to feel like in all his life, he never accomplished anything, so he thought it was perfectly understandable that his methods were rather forced and rushed- but he'd never thought of them as counterproductive.

Maybe they were even borderline unacceptable by the board- but never harmful, he'd always reasoned.

Pride and ego in a firm hold by John Hannibal Smith, Dr. Richter cleared his throat indignantly.

"Regardless if you agree with my methods or not, Smith, we have another problem on our hands."

"Which is?"

"Murdock is detoxing. This is also detrimental to his health, you know."

Hannibal sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead and switching the phone into his other hand. "He has a fever, I'm sure of it."

"Is it high?"

"No."

"Has he vomited at all?"

"That's how we found him when we came back to the hotel room."

"How is he now?"

"Sleeping."

"Someone should stay with him at all times. The shock to his body...it very well _could_ be fatal."

Hannibal looked over to the captain whose eyebrows were knotted together and jaw was tightly squared off, his eyes hardened and looked back at the ground in front of him.

"Call me if anything changes. I won't be able to sleep tonight so..." He released a sigh, "...Smith?"

"I'm here."

"Listen, I-..." He became quiet, "I'd like you to know I only had his best interest at heart. I really thought I was onto something great. I thought I was reaching a breakthrough."

"I know about your _breakthroughs, _Doc, but sometimes there are men you can't explain with science."

Dr. Richter thought over this silently, touching the binding of a book absentmindedly and looking at his glass of scotch, "All you're men would be a good example of that, I'd wager."

"I wouldn't bet against you on that one, Doc."

"Hannibal, wait."

Hannibal brought the phone back to his ear, patient.

"I trust you, Hannibal. I really do. You're a good man. I know you'll watch over him, but you'll make sure to call me if something-"

"You have my word, Doc."

With that, Hannibal set the phone back onto the cradle and looked back at Murdock's sleeping form.

"That was Dr. Richter?" Face asked, breaking the steady silence that had thickened in the room.

Hannibal nodded subtly and Face gave a large smile.

"_Impeccable _timing, I tell ya' Hannibal, these doctors getting a bad rep. lately don't deserve it." Face said sarcastically, folding his arms across his chest as he overlooked the bed.

"What'd that suckah do?" B.A asked, "He did somethin' bad to the fool, I ain't gonna let him get away with it, Hannibal."

"Calm down, B.A." Hannibal ordered quickly, putting his hand to Murdock's forehead again and pleased to see he hadn't grown any hotter, released a sigh. "Dr. Richter was trying to do the right thing, but we all make mistakes. Don't we?"

Face was quiet at this.

B.A shook his head, "Not with our _friend_ he ain't gonna make mistakes. That suckah gonna pay, Hannibal."

"Down, Sergeant." Hannibal replied, sitting down onto the couch with a sigh and brought a cigar from his jacket pocket to his lips.

"What's wrong with him?" Face asked, "Did he at least tell you that much?"

"He's detoxing."

"Off antidepressants." Face recalled the intermittent parts of conversation he'd stored away for future understanding. "Why did he put him on-"

"Because a book he read in college told him it'd be a good idea." Hannibal said, eyes narrowing, and though anger flooded his veins and encased his heart, he knew that staying homicidal towards the doctor he'd actually trusted wasn't going to bring anything good, "He wasn't thinking. Just like we weren't thinking when we sprang him from the VA when we could've asked Dr. Richter to make a pass for him. We saved his life- he would've done it." Hannibal sighed, bringing his lighter from his other pocket and Face took it from his hands quickly.

Lighting it in his usual manner of respect for the Colonel, Hannibal nodded to him in thanks once the plumes of smoke begun to release from the end.

Face handed it back to him and folded his arms against himself once again.

"We've become so used to doing everything for ourselves, we forget that we can ask for favors too. We'd of avoided all of this."

Face pinched the bridge of his nose and Hannibal took a long drag on his cigar, "Get some sleep you two. I'm taking the first watch."

"I ain't goin' to sleep, Ha-"

"When I'm ready to get some sleep, I'll be expecting you to be able to take over, Sergeant. So you better hit the hay now."

B.A watched him steadily for a second, and after a seconds more thought, lied down onto the bed with his arms folded behind his head, turning his head to watch the still form of the captain.

Face took the couch as Hannibal stood and dragged a chair to the side of the bed beside Murdock, looking him over once again. A fine dew had settled across his face and Hannibal wiped it off slowly with a small wash rag from the bathroom that B.A had apparently brought while he'd been on the phone.

"He gonna be okay, isn't he, Hannibal?"

Hannibal looked over to B.A slowly, and offered the faintest smile in return for his anxious look.

"He'll be fine, B.A" Hannibal assured, "Murdock's been through worse than this. He's a solider."

B.A looked up at the ceiling and gave an ironic sort of smile, a dry snort came and he shook his head, "How many times you think that crazy fool been shot at?"

"As many times as we have, I'd suspect. I think we've been there for most of the showdowns so far, haven't we, Hannibal?" Face replied, folding his arms across his chest in a similar fashion as Hannibal.

"I'd say so."

"I meant in war."

It became quiet and silently, they all went back to the jungle in their minds. Where the humidity was unrelenting, the fear never left their hearts, and it wasn't uncommon to find abandoned supplies and pools of blood.

"He was _always_ pissin' off the Charlie." B.A murmured, "I never learned that language, but he was always tryin' to make jokes with them. They usually just got mad. Tried to shoot him."

"He had that effect on a lot of people in Vietnam. "Face replied with a half smile, "Remember that one time, Hannibal, when we were stranded in the jungle? They shot our helicopter down and Murdock managed to land us safely."

"Yeah, man, and we were still runnin' even though the whole thing blew and took 'em all out." B.A continued, "We kept goin' 'cause Face was scared."

Face gave an indignant look, "Me? I was the scared one?"

"That's what I said, Suckah." B.A replied.

Face opened his mouth and when B.A lifted his head off the bed at the question to his honorability, Face put his hands up. "Ahh...Alright... I had every right to be. We almost _died_. Anyway, what I was getting to, was when we came up on that POW camp."

"Oh, yeah. And Hannibal was on the jazz."

Hannibal smiled at B.A, looking back at Face with mild interest when Face smiled larger, "He started telling us that if we used _surprise_..."

"...we'd get 'em for sure." B.A finished.

"But Murdock didn't wait for the rest of the plan. He wasn't used to ground combat yet and went charging in with a battle cry." Face shook his head, "But you were right, Hannibal. Surprise got 'em."

"I love it when a plan comes together." Hannibal replied with a smile stretching across his face, looking back at the sleeping man.

* * *

_Gunfire, explosions._

_'Sugar...Oh honey honey.'_

_Murdock brought the throttle back slowly, looking over the jungle below. His heading was closing in, he could feel it._

_He looked over to Basil with a smile on his face as he looked over his old photograph in his hands again._

_'You missin' them, Basil?'_

_'Oh, something terrible, Man.' _

_They laughed in unison at the feeling they were so familiar with, unsure if there was anything else they could do but smile at the thought of going home._

_'How about you, Murdock? You never do talk about your family much. I mean, your grandparents. Don't you miss them?'_

_'Well, uh..sure I do, Basil.' He took a small pocket watch from his jacket, 'Keep it with me all the time.'_

_'You have a girl at home?'_

_'I might.' Murdock replied with half a smile spread on his face, 'Not sure yet.' _

_'Well, what'd you mean? Do you like her?'_

_'Sure I do.'_

_'Then she's yours. You just gotta make it happen!'__Murdock looked over the jungle landscape distantly, a weak smile crawling up one side of his face. The thought was nice enough, but he wasn't so sure. _

_'Where you goin' after all this anyhow, Murdock?'_

_'Me? No plans. What about you?'_

_'Well...I got Ava. Figure I'll start on...on a family, you know?'_

_Murdock looked back at him, 'Yeah?'_

_'Yeah, I think it'd be nice.' _

_'Ol' Blake Basil gonna have white picket fences and a green grass and a little dog named Billy. I don't believe it.' He rambled, half his words jumbling together._

_'Hey, well, what'd you mean? You can't see me happy with a little family?'_

_'I..I dunno, Basil. Something 'bout that isn't right, ya' know? I mean...if you're gonna live the dream, why not have horses?' _

_'You're the one assuming I wouldn't.'_

_Murdock thought back on this and then shrugged, taking to chewing his piece of gum again. _

_'Look. See her?'_

_Murdock turned to the photo, skimming over the three females in it. _

_'The blonde?'_

_'No, Man! That's my sister, Blainely.' _

_'Hey!' _

_A voice called from the back and Murdock turned around, 'What seems to be the problem, sir?' Murdock asked in the flight attendant cadence that always made soldiers who he was providing transport to pause for just a second longer._

_'...Are you crazy? Huh? Are you fucking insane? Watch where you're going!' _

_'Sir, sir. If you could just **calm down**. I am **trying **to fly an aircraft here.' _

_Murdock turned back around and looked back over to the photo absentmindedly, 'So, who was it then?' He smacked his gum against the roof of his mouth, 'Her?'_

_'You bastard, that's my mother. Don't you see she's old?'_

_'People gonna like what people gonna like...' Murdock replied in an elongated and suggestive drawl with a shrug, an untasteful smirk spread across his face and Blake laughed incredulously, shaking his head._

_'No, you sicko. Her.' His voice became softer and a fondness grew in his eyes, 'This is Ava.'_

_Murdock briefly looked out the windshield again and then looked back at the photo, 'Oh. Her? Well, she's...she's beautiful.'_

_'I'm gonna marry her, Man. I think she's the one.'_

_Murdock looked back out the windshield, looking down at the ground with slight confusion, 'Hey, don't you think we should'a been there by now?'_

_'Naw. Go a little farther. We're good.' _

_'Contact base.' Johnson recommended from the back, 'And let me tell them that Captain H.M Murdock is insane and that I don't wanna **ever** be in a helicopter again with this nutjob. I mean, the way you flew between those mountains?'_

_'Hey! That is your superior.' Basil yelled, turning around to make eye contact._

_Murdock put a hand to his shoulder to let him know it was alright as he looked back out the windshield, seemingly unphased._

_'And above that, you will not disrespect the man that just **saved **your fucking lives, understand? This man could fly through a canyon with his eyes closed and I wouldn't expect a word out of any of you. If anything, you should be thanking him for driving like a god damn mad man around that fucking mountain, or we'd still be being chased by the damn Charlie. Understand?'_

_It became silent through the helicopter except for the sound of the rotating blades and the track playing._

_'Honey...oh sugar sugar.'_

_'The only thing that separates us from them is unity. We gotta be a unit. Stick together.' Basil said, still holding the photo in his hands._

_'We got company.' Murdock suddenly said, and all four men turned their attention to the helicopter flying in just behind them, to the right. Another suddenly appeared lifting from the ground and came in on the left._

_In the open space above a jungle, there wasn't much of anywhere to maneuver between. Murdock attempted to increase his altitude. He knew the helicopter he was in could sustain altitude far out of the range of their own rust buckets, but as they gained up on him, he soon realized those weren't their usual pieces of tin shit, they were American helicopters. _

_'Those're American choppers...but they ain't Americans, are they?' Murdock mumbled. _

_'No way.' Basil agreed quickly and just as he did, gunfire erupted. Explosions littered the sky and across the jungle floor._

_'Murdock!' Basil screamed as a bullet entered through the helicopter, whizzed by Marston's right ear, just taking a section off, and left a gash across the captain's shoulder._

_'I-I'm fine!'_

_Marston screamed, cupping a hand around his bleeding ear. 'Fuck!'_

_Johnson turned quickly, grabbing two of the five parachutes and handed one over to Marston. 'Let's get outta here, Man.'_

_'Y-Ya'...Johnson...Marston...what're you?' Murdock blearily looked back at the two men who prepared to jump from the back of the helicopter, adrenaline coursing through his veins he became quickly aware of the situation, 'No, it's too risky!'_

_'We'll be dead for sure if we-' Martson replied slowly, panic setting in._

_'You will not jump from this helicopter, and that's an order!'_

_Basil looked at him, wide-eyed, and then looked back at the men who, ashamed, shakily saluted them. _

_'See ya', Captain.'_

_Johnson jumped first, and then Marston._

_'No.' Murdock murmured, looking back at the men with fear filling his heart. _

_He turned his gaze from them when he watched as round after round flew through their bodies, releasing streams of blood into the air, staining the grey sky and white clouds with rivers of red._

_Hole ridden and bloody, they lowered limply to the trees._

_'Basil?' Murdock asked, about to ask if he'd seen it. When he turned to look at him, he saw his eyes begin to slowly close, his mouth open to say something, but choked on the blood that begun to pour from his mouth. Murdock looked down to see the blood gushing from his chest all over his uniform. _

_'Basil!'_

_'Sugar...oh honey honey...'_

_'Talk to me. Basil, talk to me. Talk to me, **Captain Basil**! C'mon...h-hey, y-you said you were gonna go see your girl when you got back? Right? Remember? What was her name, Basil? Basil?'_

_Murdock looked over briefly, watching the man slump in the seat._

_He snatched the photo from his limp hands and looked down at it. _

_'L-Look, I remember. Blainely, your sister. That's...' _

_He paused, looking back up to navigate the helicopter._

_'...your mother. And that's Ava...that one's...that's Ava.'_

_Black smoke encased the helicopter and Murdock swallowed as the chopper begun to shake and he knew they were going down._

_'Hold on, Buddy.'_

_Gunfire, explosions._

* * *

Murdock jolted awake. He didn't sit straight up like he did most nights in the VA, but his eyes snapped open like blinds, gasping unevenly for air as his heart rate escalated and thudded against his ribs. Face, shocked, looked to him with wide eyes and a dumbstruck expression.

"...Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." Face finally came up with something that wouldn't make the situation too awkward.

Murdock was silent for a second and then settled on a smile.

"That should've been my line to you, Faceman." Murdock muttered with a noiseless laugh.

Face stood, clapping his hands together and giving a nod towards B.A, "Try not to kill him, would you? I'm going down to get some breakfast."

"I ain't makin' no promises."

"We could just order room service, Face." Hannibal suggested, already knowing that Face would find a reason to shoot his idea down for the chance to meet women around the hotel.

"Ehhh...Yes, well, I find that the service in this hotel is probably just _overwhelmed _at this time and our food would just be _cold _by the time it got here, so..."

Hannibal chuckled from behind his newspaper, putting it down and folding it neatly onto his lap as he looked over to the captain who stared at the unplugged uselessness of the TV.

"How're you feeling this morning, Captain?" Hannibal asked as he busied himself with tearing two sugar packets open.

"Oh." Murdock took on his serious and matter-of-fact tone of voice, swallowing and nervously looking to him with every ounce of sincerity he could muster up behind his red-rimmed eyes, "At least a hundred percent better, Colonel."

"Good to hear, Captain." Hannibal murmured, bringing the coffee to his mouth, "Guess it was just a twenty-four hour bug, huh?"

"Ya' know, those were my thoughts exactly." Murdock replied with the smallest smile playing on his lips, ignoring the uneasiness in his stomach and the fuzzy brained thoughts that came in just a little too slow.

Murdock watched as B.A slowly adorned himself with each item of gold laid across the table, "Don't your arms get tired of doing that over and over and-?"

"Don't your brain get tired of bein' crazy, Fool?"

"Not my fault you're just an angry mudsucker."

"What you say?"

"Nothin'!" Murdock replied, pushing his lips together, "...my _bed bunkin' buddy_." He added to spite him with lowered eyebrows.

B.A growled out something Hannibal assumed was somewhat obscene and Murdock went back to staring at the unplugged cord hanging from the television. Deciding he should get up and get ready as everyone else already had, he grabbed his packed bag and entered the steamy bathroom with the slightest stumble in his step that Hannibal forcibly pushed himself to pretend to not notice.

B.A looked up, slightly concerned again, all anger diminishing from their little argument.

Hannibal gave him a look that told him not to interfere.

When he exited about five minutes later, freshly clothed with a wet head, Hannibal was sitting in his same spot with the newspaper in his lap and coffee in hand.

B.A was just sitting back down into his seat again and looked up to Murdock momentarily, towards the TV, and then back to his jewelry.

The TV was back on, switched to the game show channel.

Wheel of Fortune was on.

Murdock smiled and sat in his assumed spot on the last cushion to the right side of the couch, and begun again, to call out answers to the puzzles.

Hannibal looked over his newspaper just briefly enough to catch the smallest smile on B.A's lips.

* * *

**__****Word Count: 7,914**

**__****Word Level: Holy shit?**

**This chapter's even longer, and just for the novelty of it, I think I'll leave the word count down on here from now on as a joke, because these suckers are getting really long. Lol! A couple of you have said you like long ones, so I'm gonna try to stop feeling bad about it. There's a lot that needs to be said in a chapter, I guess. **

**When I re-read through it, I can't think of anything unnecessary I'm including, so I leave it like this. Hope you guys enjoy it.**

**And speaking of reviews, thank you guys for those of you that review! It's seriously appreciated! **

**For real, guys. Would love ANY kind of review. A flaming burning passion of hatred OR a loved adoration signed with hugs and kisses. I don't care. Just some thoughts on all of this would be awesome.**

**For my loyal reviewers: I love ya' to death.**

**For my loyal readers: I couldn't live without you, but let me know you read this piece of garbage, huh? So I'll get that extra oomph to update it sooner! (if you want it updated sooner...but hey, if you want it deleted off the face of the Earth, that just gives you another reason to review.) Tell what you think, guys.**

**Thanks for reading, and if you read through my whole ramble there, you are a special breed of person. **


	4. She Wanted Him Dead

**4**

* * *

Face was literally on her heels, leaving every breakfast plate he had picked out around the buffet with his tongue already salivating across his lower lip.

The song Murdock had been singing off and on the previous day entered his head while watching her feet click against the ground, _'Ah, sugar. Ah, honey honey.'_

He smiled a little deviously at her legs and the click of her high heels sent him into a trance as she turned into the elevator. Formulating a plan in the back of his mind, he cleared his throat and stopped mid-step, waiting just a second before putting a hop in his step and an urgent expression took over his features.

"Oh!" He yelled out, "Hold that elevator, would you?" He called out in an innocent voice as though he was typically taken advantage of and any woman with any morale at all would've felt a sense of pity take over them.

Her long, graceful arm stuck out quickly between the closing doors and they backed away quickly. He gave a gracious smile, pricing her manicured fingers and gold rings in a single glance and took note in the back of his mind the lack of a wedding ring. He heaved a heavy sigh, "Oh, thank you. Thanks, so much."

He re-adjusted his suit and tie as he entered the lift carefully with a smile and soft eyes, "Thanks again, really."

"Oh, it was no problem." She whispered, but looked away to avoid any eye contact. She seemed nervous and she pinched a piece of her dark fluffy hair in an attempt to become comfortable in the situation.

Face assessed the situation and his goal: A dinner date and then from dinner, he could configure his next goal- he could tell he'd have to give it his all on this girl, but she was first of all, stunning. Not the blonde daisy-duke kind of beauty, but the Italian curvy beauty with dark endless eyes and a smile that could send you into a trance. Second of all, the hotel was packed full of old men all talking golf.

Re-tracking his mind, he thought over his goal.

Just a dinner date.

They were on the ground floor, she was going to the seventh floor.

That would be a challenge with the limited amount of time, but not entirely impossible if he resulted to desperate measures.

He pulled a pen from his pocket and begun to turn it over between hands in preparation for act two.

Right now, he was just on act one.

Face looked over to her again and when she finally looked out of the corner of her eye, he smiled and abashedly looked away, "I'm sorry, I just couldn't help but notice how pretty you are and...alone. Shouldn't your boyfriend be with you? Any man that didn't know any better would take you for being single."

"Well, I _am _single. But thank you, that's kind."

"You? Single? No, c'mon. You're pulling me along."

She smiled distantly, shaking her head. "No," She drawled, looking up just for a split second, "I'm being honest."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Face dropped the pen he'd been fiddling with in his hands and gave a short nervous laugh. In her good natured way, she bent down to get the pen as soon as she'd heard it drop and Face took his cue.

He bent down just as fast, and as he went to grab the pen, looked her right in the eyes. No one, he knew, could resist it after looking him in the eyes.

She did.

She cleared her throat, looked away with the smallest blush crawling across her face, and held the object out to him. He looked shocked for a moment at her turned cheek and then looked down at the pen as if it were the very last thing he wanted at that point.

Her eyes turned to look at the silver pen she held out to him.

"Something wrong?"

"Oh, no. Nothing at all. Thanks. Really." He took the pen with sarcasm just hiding beneath his tongue, putting it in his pocket and then after a second thought, cleared his throat as he watched the floor number crawl by, "I know this might feel sudden, but I'd feel like an idiot for not trying. I just had this pen out in case maybe you'd like to give me your name and phone number? See, I have reservations for the steakhouse tonight. I was supposed to be going with an old golfing buddy of mine, but his plane was delayed and it looks like I'll be eating alone tonight. Unless I'd be lucky enough to have you as my company?"

She looked to him- without lust or anger. It was a sweet smile on her lips and genuine eyes, but she shook her head none-the-less. "No, I couldn't. Really..."

"So you _do _have a boyfriend. I'm sorry, I should've known better than to-"

"No, it's not that, it's just..." She appeared to think something over and then looked up to see they were on the fifth floor.

She looked down at the pen in his pocket.

"C'mon. What could it hurt? Some nice conversation and steak never hurt anyone, did it? I'd love to see you in candle light."

She bit her bottom lip and looked away, assuring her clothing and purse were all perfectly in place and then cleared her throat.

"I'll give you my name, but not my number. I'm free at eight."

Face smiled and nodded, almost disbelieving his good luck, but quickly reassured himself that it had been his charm, not luck, that landed him the girl. "My reservations are at eight-thirty, suppose we could have a few drinks in the bar?"

She laughed shyly, and he stuck his hand out carefully, "I'm Templeton Peck."

Her face fell, and for a second, Face was sure she had recognized the name and mentally kicked himself for using his real name. Now, he was thinking of a way to get out of the situation and avoid letting her know what room he resided in. The whole team would have to leave, and he wasn't even sure if Murdock would be up to a major move. What had he been thinking? Hannibal would surely kill him for-

"I'm sorry, I...I had a friend named Templeton...I just..." She looked up to him and then down to her hands modestly, "My name's Ava Rizzo." She extended a hand and took his with a gentle smile.

Face calmed his nerves and managed to produce a smile that he hoped conveyed nothing suspicious. He nodded once to her. The floor number dinged and the doors opened.

He was still racking his mind for anything he may have missed in his panic, but instincts kicked in and told him to say something as she begun to leave,"Very nice to meet you, Ava." He called as she calmly exited the elevator and as the doors closed, he watched her pace quicken.

Templeton was sure by her easy nature that she hadn't recognized him when he'd entered the elevator. Usually when people knew his name, they knew his face just as well, if not better. He wondered briefly if that was a compliment and then pushed away the egotistical daydreams of women clipping his photograph from newspapers knowing very well that few probably did that.

Though it was rare that someone didn't recognize at least his name, he had profiled her the minute he'd seen her and felt comfortable revealing his first name. He knew Hannibal would've told him that was a mistake and to always expect the unexpected, but when possible, he enjoyed going by his real name and feeling even the smallest inkling of normalcy return to his life.

He missed life before being a war criminal, and though that had taken up most of his life and he'd grown accustomed to it, he remembered just before joining the military at eighteen and getting every girl he wanted with no fear in his stomach that one day they might read a headline or see a breaking news report. Even if they mentioned him to a friend that new about the A-team, he'd be done for.

He never had chosen one girl before, he was young and no one really wanted to settle down that was his age. He never even entertained the thought of having less than seven girls a week. He wondered if it would've been better to of had a girl to come home to, and hopefully she would've understood he wasn't a guilty man. He would've visited whenever possible. Someone who truly knew and understood him, someone he could be totally honest with at all times.

Would it of been a good thing?

He would be endangering her life just as much as his at that moment, and he suddenly felt a sufficient amount of justification and even pride in not choosing one girl.

He'd never dated a girl he would've liked for long-term commitment anyway.

With those thoughts to promote his behavior, he pressed the ground floor button and found himself at the breakfast buffet again, attempting to hold four plates all at once as he piled them with eggs, bacon, toast and for Murdock- syrup across everything.

He shuddered as he did it and shrugged when people whispered around him about it.

Murdock was sick and could use the uplift syrup usually gave him.

And besides, he already had a date, what did it matter what a few old men and their middle-aged wives thought about his eating habits?

* * *

Hannibal sipped his coffee, looking periodically to the right for a short glance at Murdock who sat back into the seat, eyes watching the game show carefully. He wondered, just for a moment, if he was really watching people test their luck for a couple thousand dollars or if he was attempting to distract his thoughts with something- and maybe he was failing miserably.

Hannibal waved the thought away just as fast as the phone's shrill ring broke through the hotel. Murdock came around slowly, and being closest to the phone, turned to look at the origin of the noise.

Hannibal had calmly, but quickly, shoved his newspaper to the side and left the coffee on the table. "I'll get that, Captain. My producer is supposed to be calling."

Murdock looked up, and juggled the idea of picking up the phone and handing it to him just to prove he was alright, to prove that nothing in the world was wrong with him that morning- though he'd be lying through his teeth. Instead, he looked back to the TV.

"Hello?"

"Hannibal? It's Dr. Richter, I wanted to check on Murdock and your team."

At the expected voice, Hannibal allowed himself to look for just a moment back to Murdock and lower his guard, "No, everything's fine."

By the tone that did not fit the question and the sarcastic sweetness played like an expert from his tongue, Dr. Richter could see the problem fairly quickly come to mind.

"...He's right there, isn't he? Murdock's too close to carry this conversation out normally, am I right?"

"I told you things would go this way."

"He's getting worse?"

"Well, so far, no. As far as I can see it, I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place on this one."

" Maybe the worst of it's over, then. These things can and come and go though too. Murdock's strong, mentally, you know and the battle of a strong detox is half fought in the mind."

"So, everything's fine so far? I figured you could hold off a while."

"Well, I can't give you a diagnosis over the phone. Not really. Do you see any red rings around his eyes? Is he paler than usual? Jittery? Shaky? Refusing to eat? Drink? Sweating?"

"You're asking a little much from me, aren't you? What can I do about that?"

"Oh. Right. One at a time, then. Sorry about that. Red rings around the eyes?"

"Yes, it did say that in the contract."

"Paler than usual?"

"Yes, that too, but I thought it was more of a suggestion than a rule."

"Jittery or shaky?"

"I think scheduling is a little _uneasy. _They must be _distracted_ lately, but they might just be nervous about these due dates. Every time I walk in on them, their _legs are shaking_."

"I see. How about eating and drinking?"

"Well, I've never given that any thought on account that I never thought this was a major problem for the production team. I warned your men about my scheduling conflicts in advanced, you know. But I can try it and see how that goes?"

"Alright, call me if he refuses. How about sweating?"

"It's nothing to be worried about. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"So you'd say he seems better?"

"With the risk of sticking my neck out on this one, I'd say that you're right on that one."

"I won't take up any more time, but...Hannibal, I'd like to sincerely apologize. Murdock- he's a one of a kind, a true testament to war heroes. I won't put him under anymore questionable procedures without your permission again. I've thought through what you've said and...I'd like to thank you for reminding me why I wanted to take on this position in the first place. My virtues got lost out here in California, but you reminded me of the man I was once proud to be. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you, really."

Hannibal wanted to assure him he understood the pressures put on him by colleagues, or the press. Remind him that he was still a good man, that it was an accident and his heart just needed to find the right place again. Creatively, with the sense of threat, he brought the message to him in a bitter-sweet bite that he hoped would last in his mind.

"He's a trusted director, but you really need to remind him not to let his people down again. He was made for that job. Just tell him not to become a sell-out like the rest, or he'll end up in a gutter like the last one. That should get him in gear. It'd be a shame to lose a good one- there's not many left."

Dr. Richter swallowed, and raised his eyebrows.

Taking a breath he nodded to himself, "Right."

* * *

Blainley Basil.

He attempted to push the thought to the very recesses of his mind when his brain tried to force him back in that helicopter, to look at that photo again and convince his heart that Blainley Basil was in fact Captain Blake Basil's sister and stop floating on the endless river of denial in a watercraft named naivety while using a paddle called insanity.

_'...that's my sister, Blainley.'_

He knew in his heart, he should tell her. Tell her that he'd known her brother.

_"No you didn't. None of that happened. You're crazy, remember? Crazy, insane, unfit for society."_

Murdock swallowed, steadying himself by focusing on Hannibal's words but found that the lingo wasn't up his league and settled on watching B.A flip wordlessly through a car magazine.

Anything to provide a distraction.

Should he tell her that he was the last one with her brother in his dying minutes? That he talked to his dead corpse for nights on end, carried him on his back through the jungles of 'Nam and even took a bullet for him.

A bullet for a dead man.

She'd think he was crazy- not a hero, not a good man. She'd deny it. Deny that _he _could be the one to pilot beside her brother so many times before. If she didn't recognize him, it didn't matter. She didn't recognize the jacket, or his name. Maybe Basil's letters had been vague, his words must've been short and comforting for the women of his family.

Should he really change all of that by telling them the horrific bloody death that Basil had gone through and the attack that _he_, a man who ended up having no one to go back to, survived.

It should've been the other way around.

"Soups on!" Face called from behind the door and Murdock jumped to his feet, wiping the line of sweat that had gathered just above his lip.

The tension that had gathered in his muscles suddenly released and an ache spread up his neck and through his arms. His hand unclenched and he walked to the door in a few long strides with a half-smile already playing on his face.

"Faceman getting the chow?" Murdock asked, opening the door.

"Hey, Murdock." Face said, a pleased look across his face, "You're looking...better."

"Yeah, crazy idn't it? Few hours and it's gone."

"Only thing crazy is your head." B.A grumbled setting the magazine down onto the table, looking up and eyeing which plate of Face's could possibly be his. Murdock took two in an attempt to aid him and a suddenly joyous look spread through Murdock's features.

Eyes widening and smile sharpening into a grin, he looked down at the syrup, bacon and toast sandwhich.

"Aw, Faceman, you shouldn't have." Murdock looked back up to him, taking his respective plate.

"You're lucky I got a date _before _making your plate. Ehh...you should've seen the way those people looked at me." Face grumbled, taking the plate he'd made for himself which contained a balanced breakfast of chopped fruit salad, and a vegetable omelet.

B.A knew his plate by the pile of bacon, sausage patties and links all surrounded by a mountain range of eggs which laid on a toast base.

Hannibal took the last plate which contained the average breakfast. Four slices of bacon, one slice of toast, and a good helping of eggs.

Having made breakfast runs so many times due to the art of his scamming, Face had become a natural in picking each of them a breakfast, or in this case, making their breakfast on a buffet line- free to guests.

Murdock pushed back the room's curtains, his syrup bacon sandwich in one hand and his other made it to his pocket. Looking out at the skyline after so many years, and he remembered their father's refusal to move to the city. He lamented about the poor conditions they'd have to give into living in, the new lifestyle they'd have to get used to, the crime that surrounded those neighborhoods.

He said he'd stay on that farm until he died.

He did.

Murdock thankfully didn't have to stick around to watch his downfall. His grandparents picked him up soon after his mother's death. They were poor too, but no as bad off. They had no debt and his grandfather made a somewhat comfortable living by selling tailored shoes to city-folk.

Leather ran in his family.

His father had been just as gifted at the craft of shoe making if he hadn't taken up the bottle so viciously when his mother had gotten sick and they struck bad times with the drought.

"Blainley's coming to us, isn't she, Hannibal?" Face asked, folding one leg over the other as he situated his plate onto the arm rest of the couch, "Do you think it'd be possible for us to get back here around...oh, I don't know. Seven O'clock?"

"This wouldn't have anything to do with a girl, would it, Face?" Hannibal asked, flickering the TV off to eliminate any distractions, "I told you before, Lieutenant, that we're here on a job, not as winners of some bachelor game show."

Face brought his lower lip out and shrugged, "Ahh...I thought it was a good idea? Getting to know the people of the city better and creating some connections?"

"The thought's cute, Face, but like I said, we're here on a job. Blainley will be coming through that door at any minute, and if we're out until this time tomorrow morning, we'll be out until this time tomorrow morning. Date or not."

"Ehh...Ah, Hannibal. If you'd of seen her..."

"If I had seen her, I would've been there with you. If I had been there with you, you wouldn't of even talked to her. So maybe you should be thankful for what you've gotten so far this morning, and count your lucky stars."

"Ehh..." He groaned, plucking a strawberry up and popping it in his mouth absent-mindedly, thinking back on those black high heels and that business skirt against her tanned legs.

B.A turned from his piece of toast to look back at the Murdock, jacketless and hatless, looking out at the Houston skyline. He was in a rare moment of absolute silence, and B.A wasn't sure if he should savor the moment, or be worried what it could mean.

It could mean, he was thinking up a new persona to terrorize them with for the entire mission- relentless to continue the personality up until the mission was declared complete by Hannibal.

It could mean, he was feeling sick again- and that meant an unhappy sergeant and a doctor with a bulls eye on his forehead.

"You happy to be home? Long as you not lying or livin' in make-believe."

"B.A, when you insinuate that all I do is lie, it ruins my credibility 'round here!" Murdock played back teasingly, "And make-believe isn't for another four hours." He switched to a German accent quickly, "We have a _schedule_ to follow!"

"I knew you was messin' with us." B.A murmured between bites of egg, deciding it was too early to start yelling at him just yet- he wasn't prepared for a headache that early.

"I am not, B.A. I'll prove it to you somehow." Murdock replied thoughtfully, "I didn't grow up here in the city...I guess it's still home, but...it's changed a lot. Look at the size of those buildings. A lot changes in..." he counted the years in his mind and double-took.

Eighteen years.

"...eighteen years." He thought it over for a second, the seriousness of his tone echoed in his head and he whistled for good measure, "Whoo-hee."

"That's a long time to be away, Captain." Hannibal added, "You could've come any time you wanted. We would have brought you."

"You're from Michigan, Colonel but you don't go back there, right? Nothin' to see."

Hannibal thought it over briefly and nodded in a slow rhythmic way, "You're right, Murdock, but that doesn't make it right. You'll forget where you started like that."

Murdock silently wondered if that would really be a bad thing but pushed away the dark thoughts from his mind when a knock came to the door.

It was a hesitant knock, like they'd been standing there, waiting and mustering up their strength to find the voice in their head to tell them to do it. Hannibal could instantly tell it was Blainley but in a precaution, checked through the peep hole.

She stood, unsure of herself, in an expensive blue dress that reached her knees, and a thick black belt cinched the waist. She wore a black blazer ontop and her hair appeared exceptionally teasted. She removed a pair of over-sized black sunglasses and looked worriedly up at Hannibal as he opened the door.

"I brought the files." She whispered quietly, her eyes flashing down to her thin but larger black purse held by a thin strap on her shoulder.

Her hand brushed the clasp and he moved to let her in. She entered to the sound of crunching toast but it ceased quickly and everyone turned to give her their full attention. She entered with a determined air and a motivate expression as she moved her purse in front of her to remove the files, but just as she did, pushing her glasses to her head, she looked at the disheveled bed, eyes staring at the disarray.

"If we'd known we were having company-" Face begun with a smile at her perturbed expression, "Room service doesn't come until later."

She walked over, in a distracted haze and touched the cotton end of Murdock's leather bomber jacket, pushing back the blanket gently to reveal the back of the jacket. _'De Nang, 1970' _it read just above the face of the painted lion.

Murdock felt his heart thud against his ribs and his sternum, a cold clammy sweat surfacing on his palms. She remembered.

She'd ask him.

She'd caught him now for sure.

Panic filled his eyes.

"This is your jacket..." She whispered, but she didn't look away from the lion. "...where did you...?"

Murdock didn't answer, he stayed silent, focusing on breathing correctly and he swallowed when she reached back, "Sorry, I got caught up in a memory. I had a friend..." She whispered, "The man I talked about yesterday. Who died from his own courage? Well...he had a jacket he described to me in the letters he sent. It said Da Nang 1970. Just like this. Said there was a big lion painted on the back..."

Murdock swallowed, looking from the jacket to her.

She deserved to know.

He should tell her.

He couldn't.

She'd think it was all his fault, and he couldn't live with his sister blaming him, blaming the team.

But he could clear his name, let her know he died with courage- died for his country. Tell her stories about Blake Basil and all the escapades in the Hueys they'd been on when he wasn't piloting B.A, Face and Hannibal from destination to destination.

Murdock bit his lower lip.

_'Murdock!'_

_'Basil? Basil!'_

_'Hold on, Buddy.'_

_'Don't they mean anything to you? C'mon, get up!'_

_'...I'll get you out of here, Buddy...don't you worry...I'm getting you home.'_

"...Some soldiers found his body one morning, we never got the full story but the last letter he'd been writing to us all back home here in Houston was in his pocket and they gave it to us." She smiled fondly at the memory, but her face darkened, "The pilot he'd been the _co-pilot_ for...he never gave his name. Blake called him his Houston brother- but...it was...It was all that pilot's fault, Blake shouldn't of died. He was too-..." She drifted, unable to think of the accurate word to use for him, shaking her head and putting a hand to her face, she swallowed back a sob building up in her throat.

"We all lost someone in the war." Hannibal replied sternly, "We watched men fall everyday. We never blamed anyone for what happened. It came with the job. Blake must've known that as a solider."

"I...I just...you're right." She whispered in finality, "But, please, just tell me one thing, Sugar?"

She looked up to Murdock.

"Where_ did_ you get it?"

Murdock wanted to shake her and tell him it was him. Be mad at _him, _if she had to blame someone, but most of all, tell her the story. Tell her what had happened. The surprise attack, the mistaken headings, the high-jacked American helicopters, the crash and the fallout.

Tell it all to her.

Blake Basil had been his friend, he never abandoned him.

Everyone looked to him.

He'd never even told his team.

He looked down, and shook his head, "Got it from a lil' Vietnamese man. Was on our side and uh...gave me one. He had a bunch of 'em, ya' know. Gave 'em and said they brought luck."

She composed herself quickly, shaking her head and wiping away a stray tear, "That'd be Blake. He believed in luck and..and fate. I am so sorry. I just...I miss him somethin' terrible." She pulled away from the jacket, opening her purse and retrieving the files in a thin manila folder, handing them over to Hannibal in a quick motion, pushing her hair back into place and clearing her throat.

She brought her shoulders back, folding her hands in front of her, "That's everything I could get. It was hard enough to sneak into his office- he's _always_ in it."

Hannibal opened the folder and flipped through a few pages.

"We'll have to look over these..." Hannibal murmured.

"Oh, right." She replied suddenly, "Of course. Want to meet again for lunch? I'll just...I'll come back here and-"

"Too risky to see you coming in and out of the same hotel. Someone'll catch you eventually." Hannibal replied in a way that showed how many times he'd explained the same thing in similar situations, "It would be best to pick a spot and we all meet there."

"Le Pet-" Blainely began with a smile and French accent in an attempt to name the restaurant with absolute precision and Hannibal smirked.

"Somewhere unexpected. How about that bar we passed by on our way into town?"

Blainely gave him a face with a scrunched up nose and doubtful eyes, "Which one..?"

"Pick one." Hannibal replied.

"...Pico de Pico's right at the line, used to go there all the time." Murdock suggested to Blainely who looked to him.

Murdock swore her eyes lingered for just a split second longer than they should've but he waved the thought away as being delusional and crazy and she nodded, sniffling still and plucked a tissue from a stray tissue box.

"That place has been waiting to be demolished for the past three years. It ain't what it used to be..." She looked into Murdock's eyes, "You look just plum terrible today, Sugar. I'm so sorry but...what did you say your first name was again?"

Murdock felt a rush of air flow through his stomach for the third time she'd entered the room. Her questions were invasive and intense- typical, normal questions that one might answer on first handshakes so it wasn't exactly odd of her to want to know his name and maybe where he got his unique leather bomber jacket, but to him, these question were beginning to overstep some boundaries.

"H.M."

"Your...initials?" She asked, "Wait, the big fella over there does that too, don't you? Ain't you B.R?"

"B.A, Ma'am."

"B.A and H.M?" She smiled a little, "Ain't y'all just a bunch of eccentrics. C'mon now, what's your names? Ain't we just a..a _team_ now? We gotta trust each other. I didn't hire _thugs_."

They were quiet at the request for an explanation and Hannibal snorted, smiling towards his men with a laugh hidden in his throat somewhere.

Hannibal could only vaguely remember once when he'd read over a deep file under Murdock's name. Captain H.M Murdock was to be his new captain for his team, and he was doing some light reading in a very illegal and immoral way. Picking through file after file, he finally found one paper that called Murdock..Harold? Hershel? Henry?

He couldn't remember.

B.A once had been given a letter from his mother and left it on a cot. Face had picked it up and skimmed over a few lines when B.A had left. He and Murdock had a bet going on whether it was a girlfriend or wife. Face had said girlfriend and Murdock said wife.

After picking it up, within the lines, Bosco Albert was revealed.

Hannibal didn't forget that as it had been written down on many files he dug up, as well, B.A admitted openly to his name. Not that Murdock attempted to hide his name, or at least, Hannibal never had reached that assumption.

"C'mon, I shared, didn't I?" Blainely insisted with a smile and B.A gave her an unsure look, as though it were his deepest darkest secret being pried from his throat.

"Bosco." B.A finally replied.

Murdock looked up and smiled in a polite gesture, though his eyes showed that it was evident he didn't want to say, "Henry."

Her face looked to him, a forced smile on her face and the grin in her eyes disappeared in an instant. Everything became fake and Murdock could sense the sunshine slip from her features.

"Bosco and Henry." She said in a thick voice, nodding and eyes never leaving Murdock who had a hand on his neck and was looking thoughtfully at the floor, feeling her gaze crawl over him.

"I go by B.A." B.A demanded with a wary face and looked to Murdock for any back-up on the matter.

Blainely looked to B.A, suddenly realizing she was staring at Murdock.

"I don't go by Henry, either." Murdock admitted.

She frowned now, and then regained her smile after a second but this one was sarcastic and dark in contrast.

"Well." She whispered, her eyes turning to stone, "That's just fine. I'll call you B.A and H.M. Isn't that alright?"

They nodded simultaneously, a little taken back by her switch to something malicious and unexpected, "Gentleman not goin' by their Christian names..Hmph." She mumbled, turning around on the balls of her feet, pulling her bag up higher onto her shoulder, " I hope the files are helpful. But I ain't showing up around Pico de Nasty. Do you know where Pete's is, _H.M_?"

She didn't even turn around, she offered her profile and that was it.

"Uh..." Murdock thought back, he could envision the big cowboy sign and the tequila lime shots he'd gotten drunk off on his twenty-first birthday. Never again did he drink a shot of tequila. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Twelve O'clock, then."

The door closed behind her and an air of uncertain anger was left in the room.

"Pete's is right next'a Pico's..." Murdock murmured, kicking his foot against the carpet in disappointment.

After a moment of uncertain wariness, Face gave a wry smile and shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets.

"I've dated worse."

"Pico's got better salsa..." Murdock continued in a drabble of obvious regret for not denying any knowledge of Pete's.

"Girl isn't screwed on tight, Hannibal." B.A shook his head, "Askin' too many questions and she's crazier than this fool."

Murdock awakened from his trance, eyes flashing from his jacket on the bed which he'd begun to think back to again, to B.A with a shocked face, mouth open wide, "B.A! Around the children? We've discussed this." Murdock motioned towards Hannibal and Face and B.A looked at them and then back to Murdock.

Realizing the game Murdock had begun, B.A frowned, anger evident in his frown and narrowed eyes.

"Don't you start, Suckah."

Hannibal folded his arms, "She might be a little curious and a little manic..." He admitted flatly with a serious expression, breaking the feud that had just begun and brigning the conversation back around.

Face snorted at what he guessed must've been the understatement of the year.

"She has a right to be." Hannibal offered, "She hired us because she has reason to believe her husband is a _murderer_. This can't be easy. We're a distraction for her. She won't remember half of what we say by tomorrow."

At the continuous silence that had taken over, Hannibal held up the files, "We've got work to do, Fellas."

* * *

Murdock felt distant.

Like an unseen force was looking down at him with judgmental eyes every time his mouth went dry at the thought of trying to explain to the guys about the incident with Blainely over the jacket. Trying to explain to them about Blake Basil, the crash, the days and nights protecting his dead body in a jungle for the sake of his proper burial.

Something he'd never told anyone about.

Not Dr. Richter, not General Lenard, not even Gramma or Grampa- God rest their souls.

He wondered what they'd advise him to do if he explained the current situation to them. Grampa would suggest somethings just weren't meant to be told, and that a man had to keep secret when it was necessary. Gramma would say something to suggest he should do what he felt was right and make the decision he could live with- but to always think of the consequences.

Nothing much of any help, but he felt like even a spiritual connection that could confirm his assumptions would've set him down to a dull anxiety in contrast to his hidden livid panic.

Somewhere within the back of his mind, where the memories of Basil lashed at him continuously, he juggled the idea of visiting a grave or four.

He'd never gotten to see their graves, and he secretly lied to himself but knew their deaths were the reason he'd always been a little sickened by the thought of returning home. Home wasn't here, in Houston, where memories were something surreal and so far in the past it almost felt like a fiction novel he'd read or something and had accidentally twisted it with reality.

He'd gotten the letter about their death just around the time of being discharged on the basis of insanity. It was after the screening, just that night, when he got the letter that brought him into a miserable sickening ball of depression and loathing.

He'd promised her he'd come home.

Promised.

_'Don't you worry. I'll be back in a year or two. I'll write, and send pictures and-.' _

_A metal pan slammed against a countertop, and Murdock's face fell into a frown. _

_Grampa sat at the table, hands folded over the newspaper and a dark expression as he looked into the cup of steaming coffee he hadn't been able to drink. He closed his eyes at the sound of his wife's choked cries. _

_'...This is what I wanna do.' Murdock whispered, 'This is really what I wanna do, Gramma.'_

_'You'll come home, H.M. Just promise me that, Baby. Promise me you'll come home.'_

_'...I promise, Gramma.'_

He never came home.

Not for his grandparent's funeral.

Not for their graves.

Not for Basil's funeral.

Not for his grave.

"There's not much to go off of here, Hannibal." Face said, bringing Murdock away from the Houston skyline at the window again.

He wheeled around, hands deep in his pockets and he nervously pushed his forefinger and thumb together.

Face was sitting in the middle of the couch, feet on the coffee table and files in hands. He had his glasses on which had always made him look distinguished, and checked his watch which they'd all begun noticing he was doing more often as the day drew on.

"Ehh..." He begun in his usual throaty noises, the ones he made just before saying something out of desperation. He grabbed his reading glasses off of his face in a slow motion that allowed him time to formulate his sentence, "There's one guy on here, listed as a reference probably two or three times. Might be worth checking out. Ivan White? His address is here on all the papers."

Hannibal nodded to himself, but something felt off, and he looked over the paper in his hands for the hundredth- searching for something hidden within the sentences. "Nice work, Lieutenant." He murmured between pressed lips wrapped around a cigar.

"...but it's fake." Hannibal murmured suddenly and Face sighed in contempt, leaning back into his seat and giving an exasperated sigh, "Why would he put his name on these hard copy files? If this is illegitimate business, it wouldn't make sense. It doesn't add up. We'd probably even be killed on sight if we went to this address because they'd know we had the files."

"What is it?" Murdock asked absentmindedly, staring up at the ceiling fan wondering how driving an upside down helicopter might be like in an attempt to keep his thoughts of Basil at bay.

Hannibal handed the file back to the captain who grabbed them without much thought and looked down to the address after a pause and it clicked in his brain like a switch. He did a double take and looked back to the others who were busy on other things. Face with more papers, and looking morbidly disappointed in finding no secret codes to unlock the answers to all his problems. B.A was busy watching Hannibal who was in turn searching the faces of a picture that had been attached to the file.

"Well that can't be right..." Murdock whispered, looking once again at the address.

Hannibal looked back at the captain, looking to the file and then to his perturbed and maybe even _disturbed _expression.

Murdock thought back on Blainely looking at his jacket, at him, the resentment in her voice when she talked about her supposed friend's death. Basil, the man he'd let down. And his sister, who maybe wasn't as blind and blonde as she let on.

"What is it, Captain?"

Could she? Could she of known? Was that why she'd changed so fast? Her tone and expression had changed like a switch. Had his name set off something in her mind? Henry. Could it of been a trigger? Could H.M of been a trigger? Was that why she suggested they go to Pete's at the last moment?

Murdock looked up to Hannibal, confusion settled deep in his mind and in the pit of his stomach. He felt light-headed, but he wasn't sure if it was from overpowering anxiety or if it was from whatever it was that had afflicted him yesterday which he was ninety-seven percent sure wasn't gone.

Either way, he had to concentrate to stay vertical and not take the easy route and go horizontal.

Hannibal waited patiently, they all waited for just a few short seconds while Murdock got his thoughts racked up cleanly in a row and finally he blinked and came to.

She wanted him dead.

"This address is for Pete's."

* * *

**Word Count: 7,009**

**Word Level: Damn, slow down, Self.**

**Thanks everyone for waiting on this one. What a pain this week has been. I'm NOT going to post my life story, lol, but uh, lemme tell you- it's been shitty. **

**Real. Fucking. Shitty.**

**So have some love in your heart for me and forgive me first of all for leaving you guys hanging for so long. Then, if you have just enough love left to spare: leave a review? For me? **

**Thank you guys for reading, really.**

** I love ya'. **

**Hope you liked the chapter and feel safe that the worst is yet to come.**


	5. Says You

**5**

* * *

"She wouldn't." Face shook his head with a nervous smile, looking to each of his teammates for consolation, "I mean, she hired us to..."

"Decker trap." B.A replied shortly with a growl, "Thought you said she was good, Hannibal."

"She doesn't work for Decker." Hannibal replied, taking back the file from a stunned looking Murdock who was racking his brain on what evidence he had that Blainely knew who he was, "Are you sure about this address, Captain?"

Murdock took a moment to respond, but nodded slowly, and it was only then that Hannibal took notice that his skin had turned to a white sheet and just as he was about to suggest he sit down for a minute, Murdock stumbled a little and fell into Hannibal's opened arms.

"Easy, Captain. C'mon, let's sit you down for a few minutes."

Face stood up at the urgency and B.A was already beside the Colonel, tight lipped about Blainely for the moment as he watched Hannibal lay Murdock down across the bed, and ordered him to close his eyes.

Murdock swallowed and slowly his eyes started to roll to the back of his head.

The anxiety had taken his body over and locked his joints up in a sort of paralysis. The fear was swelling thick in his brain, making his skull feel like it might explode. His heart beat was thunderous in his head and his fingers shook.

And he felt himself drift with the thoughts of Blainely knowing who he was, exposing him, and ripping every secret from him like teeth with pliers. He'd have to follow his team blindly wherever they went unless he told them the truth. But then what would they think of a man who let his co-pilot die? A man that couldn't protect his men in the heat of a battle? Who couldn't give out orders when he was the highest rank?

A failure.

A pitiful failure.

"I ain't me...ain't me..."Murdock sung gently in a delirious attempt to calm his nerves, but he felt himself slipping again, and finally, he let himself.

Behind his closed eyes, there was the jungle canopy.

_'Basil...'_

_ The leaves were dripping from the fine mist and from the fiery helicopter, he swore he could heard the tape playing 'Fortune Son'. _

_Burnt skin still hung in the air, and he had Basil in his arms. _

_Basil, who didn't move. _

_Basil, who didn't breathe._

_Basil, who was silent for the first time in his life._

_'Wake up, Basil.' _

"Fever's back..." Hannibal murmured, picking up the phone as he remembered the single promise he'd made to the traitorous Dr. Richter who he was finding particularly hard to forgive at that moment.

"Dr. Richter her-"

"Fever's back."

Dr. Richter swallowed audibly, and maybe he did it on purpose to convey his worry, but Hannibal didn't worry over the trivial facts of the phone call and kept his attention on Murdock who murmured something about waking up.

"Doctor." Hannibal reminded the doctor of the present and Dr. Richter snapped back into reality.

"Did you lay him down?"

"Yes."

"Is he aware of his surroundings?"

"Not exactly."

"Get a cool cloth on his head, and if he feels particularly hot, you'll have to undress him. Don't let him underneath covers."

"I don't think we'll have to fight him, Doc. He's out cold."

"...that's not a good sign, Colonel."

Hannibal was silent at this, setting the phone down onto the night stand and walked to the bathroom quickly, "B.A, Face, get Murdock's shoes and socks off."

They were quick at work, undoing the laces and pulling his feet from the Chuck Taylor's and snatching the socks off in a quick grip-tug motion like they were hijacking clothes for one of their scams.

Hannibal, holding onto the cold rag he made sure was nearly dry by ringing it out a few times, set the cloth onto the Captain's head. It was cold against his hot skin and Murdock's eyelids fluttered slightly, but his delirium was deeply set and he mumbled something else, but Hannibal couldn't make it out past a miserable sounding groan.

"I knew he wasn't a hundred percent..." Face admitted, jutting a thumb towards a plate, "...he didn't finish his sandwich and Murdock never leaves more than half of a bacon syrup sandwich go to waste. Especially when my reputation was put on the line for it."

Hannibal smiled at the thought of women surrounding Face as he made the specialty item for the captain, red in the face as they pointed and giggled at the strange creation.

"Hum..." Murdock whispered a sound of strange discomfort, and he squirmed against the sheets.

Hannibal flipped the rag onto the other side, pressing his hand down onto it gently. The side that had been against Murdock's forehead was hot and Hannibal's smile faded as he realized he fever might be spiking.

Murdock's eyes opened finally and he pushed against Hannibal's arms, "Aw, shucks...I-I'm fine, Colonel..." Murdock murmured, "I'm fine, I'm fine."

"You have a fever, Captain, try to close your eyes."

"No, no. I'm fine, Colonel. _Fine_."

"Close your eyes, that's an order, Captain."

Murdock reluctantly closed his eyes, but his hand didn't remove itself from around Hannibal's arm.

"Face, take over here."

Face slid into position, sitting in the seat beside Murdock's bed and pressing the rag to his head, looking over at Hannibal who picked up the phone from the night stand, pulling the cord to allow the captain to keep his hand around his forearm.

"He's up." Hannibal said, silently hoping that Dr. Richter would offer some form of relief to his steadily escalating nerves with this news, but the doctor was quiet, only making a small noise to clear his throat, "He opened his eyes." Hannibal continued, "Said he was fine."

"Is the fever climbing?"

"Could be."

"Take his shirt and pants off. It seems to work with him."

Hannibal frowned.

"Had this happen before, _Doc_?"

"No, no not exactly. He had an ear infection once, but that was a while back. Removing his clothes got the fever down pretty quick."

Hannibal set the phone down again, apparently satisfied with the explanation because he did seem to remember Murdock mentioning having a God awful ear infection while they'd been laying low after a mission, and that was his excuse for his unsteady balance and poor gunmanship throughout the entirety of the case.

"Doc says we gotta strip him."

Both B.A and Face looked into his eyes just to ensure he was serious and when they both came to a consensus that this wasn't a joke and Hannibal wasn't simply trying to get a rise out of them, they turned and started.

Face began by undoing his belt and un-fishing it through the belt loops of his khakis.

B.A removed the rag from his head, getting one arm out of the shirt as Hannibal started on his left side.

Face removed his khakis, sliding them down his thin frame and off onto the floor.

Face looked unsteadily at the dark blue boxers that were left on him.

"We can...uh...leave his...ehhh..."

Hannibal didn't justify the question with a response and Face cleared his throat, nodding, "Right. Good."

Murdock shivered as Hannibal replaced the rag onto his forehead again. His thin pale body against the sheets would've blended in if it had not been for the hair on his chest and legs.

After a few moments of unsure noises and blinking, Murdock finally took a shaky breath and squinted up at the Colonel.

"Uhh...Colonel?"

"Captain?"

"No off-..._offense_ but...why did you just...undress me?" Murdock asked groggily, "I- I think I might be...Yes. Yep. I'm naked. I'm almost a hund'erd percent positive, that I am naked. Am I naked, Colonel? Please tell me you either ain't there, or...I'm not naked."

"_Half_ naked, Captain." Hannibal corrected, stuffing a cigar nervously into his mouth, but showed nothing of the sort outwardly. He couldn't show weakness, not with Murdock in this condition.

"I'd really like to be dressed." He said, his voice sounding lost like it was in a sea of something thick, like milk. "I'd prefer it, I mean."

"You have a fever. We have to get that taken care of first, Captain."

Murdock didn't respond for a moment and then asked again, "Colonel?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Blainely wants me dead, doesn't she?"

Hannibal's frown deepened at the wording, noticing the use of _'me' _instead of _'us' _and removed the unlit cigar from his mouth.

"Why would you say that, Captain?"

Murdock wanted to tell him it was because he had been that captain that sent their Huey into the ground, killing her brother, failed the two men in the back by his lame orders, and had no good excuse to justify anything.

He was ambushed, tricked and hoodwinked.

But not even that was a good enough excuse.

He was their leaders, their Captain, and he failed them.

He, H.M Murdock, was Blainely's brother's killer.

Murdock silently retracked his words as his mind came more and more to the present, and realizing his slip, felt his stomach begin to churn again.

"Mmm...N-no reason, Colonel. The address is all."

Hannibal silently noted the coherence that was beginning to take over the delirium, and looked to the other two who were looking at Hannibal in hope.

"He's coming around." Hannibal murmured, nodding, "We should keep him talking." Hannibal turned his attention back to the squinting Captain who was currently taking to staring at the ceiling, "Could be coincidence. We're still going at twelve, we'll just be packing some firearms- that is, if you'll be up for it."

Murdock's eyes blinked and opened more, looking to him with something akin to fear, but it drifted and Hannibal couldn't pinpoint what it was fast enough.

"I'm up for it, Colonel. Don't you worry about me none. I'm good to go. I felt a little fuzzy before was all."

"I know, Captain. I know."

Murdock eyes looked to him, they were tired and red. They searched Hannibal's face for a second and then they moved to the window again, studying the Houston outline.

Hannibal put a hand to Murdock's forehead and Murdock turned to watch his expression in a way to gage what his diagnosis would be based off his expression.

"Seems like it's gone down."

"Being naked is good for the soul." Murdock said carefully as B.A made a face at the suggestion that Murdock may start undressing even more, "I can feel all them bad vibes just...floatin' away."

"Well, let's not make a habit of it hm, Murdock?" Face asked with a smile, folding his arms, "I think I've seen enough for one day."

Murdock couldn't help but let the smile stretch across his face, "Colonel, can I get dressed now?"

"What about the bad vibes, Captain?"

"I think they're gone."

"Are you sure? I think you should wait a while." Hannibal played the game with a taunting grin, collecting his shirt and pants off of the floor.

"No, they're gone. It's like..." Murdock sucked in a breath and took on a far-away look to give the situation a little comic relief, "...a heavy weight has been lifted from my heart. Heavier than the weights B.A lifts..."

Hannibal decided that Murdock was back mostly, and handed over his clothes.

"Alright then." Hannibal replied with a nod, and Murdock quickly took his pants, wiggling into them and sliding the shirt over his head in a quick three second maneuver.

Hannibal picked the phone up, Murdock distracted by something that Face was saying with a relieved expression.

"It's over."

"I believe that'll become typical. It's called a spell."

"Call you if anything changes then, Doc?"

"Yes, please do, Hannibal. Update me regularly, Colonel."

"Alright, Doc."

He hung the phone up onto the cradle and looked to Murdock with content who was attempting to sit up from the bed, pushing himself up with a single hand.

Murdock knew he was weak after his...what was it? An anxiety attack? He'd had those before and they'd been remarkably similar, but it felt as though it had been on-coming through the whole morning, though he'd never admit to that. Like an aura hung around every object, and it was just coming...there was a feeling that it was coming...

A wave of dizziness overtook him again as he managed to sit up, and slumped over, a hand across his eyes.

"Alright, Captain?"

Murdock nodded softly, not wanting to stir anything more up and Hannibal took him by the arm carefully, "Easy."

Murdock slid his legs over the side of the bed, putting his head into his hands.

"Face, what time is it?"

Face checked his watch, "Ehh...about eleven."

"Murdock, how far is Pete's from here?"

"Thir-..." Murdock thought about it closer, and decided on, "Thirty five- forty minutes."

Hannibal considered this for a moment and then crossed his arms, looking down at Murdock as the captain folded his hands into his lap, apparently in thought, but Hannibal knew better than to let his mind wander when it was also looking to be troubled. "Murdock." He inquired, as though he had more to say, but when he shoved the cigar back in his mouth, Murdock knew he wanted him to reply.

"Righty right, Colonel..." He drifted quietly.

"How're you feeling, Captain?"

"Sane, and I'm scared, Colonel. I think I'm thinking very sane-like, but that's just a thought that I think I thought."

Hannibal smiled and nodded shortly, knowing that he was coming back around, and if worst came to worst, he'd be there in front of Murdock, a gun within reach to defend him. He grabbed his lighter and Face was there to intervene as always, grabbing the lighter respectfully and lighting the cigar.

"Thanks, Face."

Face handed the lighter back to him.

"Man _sounds_ like his normal self." B.A joked with his usual dryness, but he couldn't stop himself from putting a hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Intermittent cold, Captain?" Hannibal asked, and briefly thought over just telling Murdock the truth.

The truth which would be that Dr. Richter had purposefully been drugging him in an attempt to juice information from him to force a breakthrough and get his face in a paper and maybe write a book through a ghostwriter. In one quick sentence, that was essentially all he'd need to say.

But Hannibal was well-aware of Murdock's general distrust of anyone outside of the team and Hannibal didn't want to induce paranoia where it wasn't needed. He was sure Murdock was coming around to the thought of Dr. Richter being a friend and not an enemy, or at least he was accepting him as an acquaintance with no ill-will towards him. In truth, that was a safe relationship to presume because Dr. Richter truly didn't have any ill-will towards Murdock, he just didn't have the best intentions at heart at the time of his decision making.

Hannibal was assured he'd set the doctor straight, and would be monitoring him from then on, and didn't need a paranoid Captain on top of it all.

He generally liked Dr. Richter, especially with the fact that he knew who the A-Team was and on top of that was going to protect Murdock's identity. And if the doc went through a mid-life crisis, that was fine. Everyone was entitled to at least one even though he never had himself.

But now, there was no lee-way. There was no little mistake. There was no, oopsies.

With his captain's mental health at risk, there was no joking and to put it blunt, he wasn't going to let someone fuck up _his_ boy's head and that was why Hannibal swore that if that doctor so much as asked _one_ question that he deemed out-of-line, if he screwed with his medications even to the _smallest_ milligram, if he so much as _breathed_ in the same room as his captain without _his_ God damn permission, he'd have his head on the van's antenna and parade through the city with it.

No more unquestioned trust for Dr. Richter, maybe one day he could redeem himself. But that wouldn't be today or tomorrow, or even a year from now.

"I...I uh...Yeah. Funny bug idn't it?" Murdock laughed nervously, slowly standing from the bed with B.A beside him, silently guarding with a hand ready to catch him if he should waver.

Murdock didn't and rebounded back to his normal self within seconds, grabbing his jacket and pulling his cap on tighter, he was ready to go.

"Fit as Face's suits now."

"Ehh...Murdock? I believe the saying is _fit as a fiddle_." Face suggested off-handedly, looking into a mirror and absent-mindedly situating his tie, but his eyes were steadily watching Murdock's frame, taking note of his shaky hands and red-rimmed eyes that he thought might of been getting worse.

He'd have to ask Hannibal later.

But he was definitely paler and his reaction time was off as he counted the seconds it took for Murdock to respond. Murdock wiped the sweet from beneath his nose that had nestled in his Jacob's cradle and smiled back at Face in the mirror.

"Well, sure, Faceman. But why would you take to a saying that doesn't even make any sense? How could a fiddle be fit? Give credit where it's due, Man!" Murdock threw his hands up, and then relaxed his expression, raising his eyebrows and speeding his voice up, "Your tailor really is something, Faceman. You should thank him more."

"He has a point, Face." Hannibal replied. "Without those suits, your scams just wouldn't work."

Face looked uncomfortably towards Hannibal, wondering if he'd simplify his art so low, but when he saw the humor in his eyes, he smiled back.

B.A looked to Murdock nervously, his hand just a few inches from his back and when Murdock seemed to take notice he gave B.A a strange look and the sergeant pulled his hand away quickly.

"I'm alright, Big Guy. Really."

B.A growled and Murdock raised his eyebrows and cocked half a smile, "You'll like Pete's. Lotta company you'll enjoy there. Least, that's how it was before. All the tough guys hung around there. Cowboys, bikers- oh the bikers. They'll really dig all your gold."

"And I imagine you were annoying them with all your crazy talk even back then, huh?" B.A chided, arms crossed as he waited for Face to grab the keys and put them into his pocket.

They made a few steps towards the door and Murdock bowed his head, looking up to him from beneath the bill of his cap and smiling widely, "Mah-beh."

B.A, translating this to _'maybe' _curled his lip up in something like disgust and turned away, shaking his head.

"Crazy fool on verge'a death one minute and the next minute he's wise crackin' again."

Face held the door open, motioning for Murdock to continue through as he followed B.A and B.A followed Hannibal like obedient little ducks all in a row. And when he was sure that no one was watching him, no one was looking back to him, Murdock let the smile fall from his face and looked in contemplation towards the floor.

He knew the address on the files had been for Pete's. He knew that Blainely had changed her mind on where to meet up just after having heard Murdock's first name. Murdock was unsure of this was related, but the suspicions were tugging his stomach to the ground and he swallowed often to not puke in his mouth.

Bacon and syrup sandwiches just wouldn't taste the same coming up as they did going down, he decided, and reminded himself to just breathe.

Just breathe, Murdock.

Stay a shadow and she'd never think a second thought about him and his jacket.

* * *

Face gave an impatient look to the cabbie, crossing his arms, "I'm telling you, that lady over there-" he paused in impatience and shook his head, "Do you see her?"

The cabbie snorted, "Well of course I see her, Son!"

He looked towards the tall woman, veiled in floral prints and two shawls, her eyes shielded by a pair of large black sunglasses.

"Okay, well that poor blind lady has been waiting for a cab for at _least_ half an hour, okay? I'm real late to a meeting, but I thought I'd let you know. Okay? That's what've been trying to explain to you. Just..." Face sighed, looking to his watch, "Tell her you're a cabbie or...or something."

The cabbie looked to him with somewhat of a doubtful look, but as Face begun to walk away, the cabbie contemplated the situation and sat for a moment more, staring at the old woman who was leaning against a steel cane and looking rather helpless and a sense of pity rose in him.

Maybe it was the resemblance he shared to his mother, or maybe he was just happy his coffee break was coming up soon, but he stepped out of the cab much to Face's gratitude and just as he walked to the street corner, leaving the keys in the cab and the door open, Face slid into the seat motioning towards the Hotel's front.

Murdock and B.A came rushing from the small courtyard outside the hotel's entrance where Murdock had engaged in a friendly conversation with a homeless woman who enjoyed feeding the birds with the scraps of bread she saved from her hand out at the homeless shelter.

She was old, tired, but clean and not a disturbance. She seemed out of it in a way that she was in her own world where only pigeons, sunsets, and old ranching stories existed in her head as that had contained much of the conversation between the two and Murdock had sincerely enjoyed the short-lived conversation.

Hannibal, was already in position, still and waiting for the cabbie.

The cabbie shouted to him, "Hey? Hey, you're waiting for a cab ma'am?"

Hannibal cleared his throat silently beneath the hum of the crowd swirling around them and gave a sweet smile. From beneath two shawls and floral print materials he brought his voice to a high pitched rasp and murmured, "Ooh, yes. Yes..."

The cabbie gently grabbed his wrist as though she was an injured bird and attempted to lead her down the curb, "There's a step.." He murmured and she smiled out into the distance in recognition of his kindness.

And through the glasses, when Hannibal saw him get just a little further ahead, his hand still softly guiding him, he broke into a sprint.

"Sorry, Pal."

And Hannibal jumped into the passenger seat, the cabbie stunned and unable to move from his position a few feet from the street curb. Reality kicked in shortly after and he broke off towards the cab that had begun to pull out from the parallel park he'd been situated into.

"Hey! Hey, that's my-...Damn it!"

"Hey, Muchacho!" Murdock yelled, "Take a coffee break and we'll be back, Amigo!"

Or at least, Murdock hoped they'd be back.

He rolled his window up and pushed his hat on tighter.

"We don't know our way around here, Captain. You'll have to direct Face." Hannibal reminded the Captain and Murdock sat forward.

"Oh! Right. No problem, right Faceman? Just a little Houston traffic here, but we've got this whole city pinned down. No law-swindler will get from beneath our grasp, no fugitive can run forever because soon...soon they _will _get tired and _thirsty. _And _Houston thirsty..._ooooh..." Murdock gave a fake shiver but B.A was beginning to take notice to the act, "...that kinda desert thirst that just drives a man..." Murdock gave a wicked laugh and then fell silent again, ending on a dark and dramatic, _"...crazy..."_

"Hey! Shut up and tell the man where to go, Murdock. This ain't time to play around."

"Ah, B.A...are you scared? Scared of the desert thirst? Long as you've been a good boy this year...it won't git'cha."

"I'm scared of gettin' lost out here with you." B.A admitted with a frown, "So make sure you know where you're going."

"Ah, shucks." Murdock waved the suspicion off, ending the dark sheriff persona quickly, "Don't you worry about'a thing, B.A. Got a mental map just as clean as your jewelry. Just make a right up here, Faceman. We're going in the opposite direction right now."

Face nodded in understanding.

The light he was sitting at seemed to take forever, but they were used to L.A traffic and as such, could deal with a little Houston golf convention traffic. It was a few seconds longer at the lights than probably usual, and maybe a few extra cars cut you off but in the grand scheme of things, how much of a difference would it make?

Face made the right.

"Now another right and you should be on track."

Face made the next right as Murdock had pointed and directed.

"Okay go for a good while. I'll let you know when to turn."

Murdock leaned back into the seat, looking out the window in wonder.

Change.

It was evident in every crevice of the city.

He remembered the streets that had been flooded with anti-Vietnam protests and the ones he'd spectated at sixteen or seventeen when he'd drove to the city.

He remembered the street corners full of old newspaper stands, fruit stands, the festivals and the happy faces on so many people that were oppressed and poor from the drought that the people were never fully able to shake.

He remembered the buildings and what Houston had been before.

New buildings intercepted the skyline he'd remembered and stores were gone he half-expected to still be there.

And if he'd been alone, he would've popped his head into a few of them, just to remember. Just to remember a time before Vietnam. Before war, before he'd bloodied his hands, before he'd left his grandparents.

Before he'd abandoned everyone.

He'd always just wanted to be...up there. And they promised to make him a bird. They promised financial security for his grandparents, and more than anything, that was the reason he'd done it. Because out there, he wouldn't of been much and he knew it. His grandparents would've killed him if they'd known he'd done it for the money, but in all truth, besides that point, he always knew his true calling was the sky anyway.

He just never had been sure how to get there.

So he did it for his love of the sky and the love of his grandparents. A win, win situation.

So why had it become such a failure?

He'd promised to come home and now-

"Murdock? We good still?"

Murdock came around and looked at the street they were on. "Yeah. 'nother few minutes still."

"Okay."

Murdock felt his heart jolt uncomfortably in his chest.

What about Blainely? Did she know? How would he explain everything to her better if she did know? Because obviously, she didn't know the whole story. How would he explain it all to his team? He wouldn't be able to justify his failure, but he could explain what had happened and let them decide for themselves how disappointed they were.

He felt sick just thinking about Hannibal looking down at him, flicking his cigar towards him with a sad frown.

Face not able to make eye contact.

B.A shaking his head.

No.

He wouldn't be able to-

"Turn here, Face."

"A left?"

Murdock nodded, "Yeah."

Just as he pointed, Face made the left.

"Hey, a pie shop?" Face smiled, motioning towards the quaint corner store. "I don't know if I've ever seen a pie shop. Just pie, huh?"

"Just pie." Hannibal murmured.

"Bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey in rye. Singin' this'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die."

Hannibal smiled at the lyrics coming from Murdock who hit his hand against his knee, but wondered silently if the singing meant he was nervous as Hannibal had often noted was a tick Murdock tended to have.

The singing wasn't always just spontaneous or relevant and comical, but Hannibal through the years, had made note that Murdock sang against the brunt of his anxiety as often evidenced when piloting through particularly tough situations, through gun fights, and during small episodes which were often invisible to others because Murdock tackled them independently, when he felt like Vietnam was just too close to him in his memories- he'd sing something to get his mind off of it.

But singing was not _always_ a symptom of such things and it wasn't a key to understanding the pilot because no one could truly find the skeletal key to explain him, just like no one could find a skeletal key to unlock the mysteries behind _any_ of them. They were each complex individuals with too much story to tell in a single sitting.

However, Hannibal had to wonder at that point.

_'Blainely wants me dead, doesn't she?' _

The words Murdock had spoke nagged at the colonel's brain and he tried to lock them away for later because he was beginning to think he was just over analyzing the situation, but they were there and he couldn't push them away as nothing.

He tried to convince himself it was the detox, it was the whole coming home situation that had Murdock rattled. And trying to hide his feelings, his thoughts. That couldn't of helped.

So he tried to push it away again.

"You should see a big fat cowboy guy on a sign, Face."

"A neon sign?"

"Didn't used to be neon, but..." Murdock shrugged and smiled a little, "...been a while."

Murdock looked through the window, stretching his neck and situating himself at odd angles and finally saw the sign and smiled, "Yeah, that's Pete's."

Face parked the car, looking back in the side mirror at the city they'd gotten somewhat out of. They were on the very outskirts, and in the distance was a patch of long flat desert. Maybe the last patch of desert sand near Houston and Face was silently assured it was already probably planned to be built up very soon.

Hotels? Golf and Country clubs? Who knew the possibilities?

"There's a parking lot to the side of the bar...right there..." Murdock pointed towards a small alley way to left of the bar, "Turn in there and there's a parking lot."

Face put the car into drive and inched his way into the alley, and went around to the back where sure enough, there was a parking lot and he took one of the last few spaces, "Packed?"

"Seems like it." Hannibal replied, "Won't be for long if Blainely's planning something."

"...'less it's an ambush. People know each other around here..." Murdock suggested, he was definitely nervous and Hannibal could smell his anxiety and he wanted to question it until he got a definitive answer out of the captain but decided to leave it be. He used his patience, acquired with age.

Could be nothing. So he told himself again, ignore it, Hannibal. They were all nervous, he just needed to let the captain breathe.

Just breathe, Murdock.

They made their way around the alleyway they'd drove down to get to the parking lot, to the front entrance, and Hannibal hesitated at the handle. "If anything looks suspicious..."

"Texas." Face offered as a code word, "Doesn't seem too weird to say, right? Considering we're in Texas?"

Hannibal thought it'd still sound awkward, using a single word, but a phrase could be confusing, forgotten, unnoticed. A single definitive word always worked best and ensured no mistakes.

"Not used in a sentence." Hannibal reminded them and opened the door.

A puff of smoke rose from the darkness, an oaky smell like the cigars Hannibal smoked suddenly made their eyes water and blink back the dust they could see from the streaming light. B.A closed the door behind himself as they walked in casually, blinking back the dust, and clearing their throats.

Coming across as possible tourists, maybe golfers or golf aficionados, most of the patrons turned back to their card games after sizing each of them up. B.A was sort of a sore thumb in the mix with his gold jewelry and camouflage jacket, but at least the nationalism of his jacket settled their nerves and they didn't give too much thought to it.

But that was how it was, Murdock remembered suddenly. People in those bars, Pete's and Pico's alike, minded their own business because no one wanted to become entangled in whatever business others had there at those bars. Often times, the lives of the bar-goers were complicated and twisted- and everyone had their own problems to worry about. Too many to become involved with anything else.

Some things just never changed.

Including Pete's atmosphere- like a roasted almond the room was dark and smoky.

But sitting at a bar, with her head in her hand and an empty shot glass between two fingers, was Blainely.

Blainely Basil who caught Hannibal's eye with her own like a rat in a trap and smiled- but in the darkness, Hannibal couldn't read the code in that thin line of a smile.

He pursued in a natural way, his men falling in line behind himself, and she looked at them each individually.

Her eyes rested on Murdock, eyes trailing down his cracked leather jacket and she frowned, turning back to her shot glass and touching a lime absent mindedly.

"I wanted to say sorry, you know. For what all I said and how I acted and such..." She drawled, and her words were almost slurred, but she was coherent. She knew what she was doing. "...I was so...so..."

She broke off and looked to the bartender who pretended to mind his own business by counting some money in a cash register.

"What's y'all's poison? Round'a shots do ya' any good?"

"No drinking on the job." Hannibal smiled dryly, "We're here to discuss these."

He pulled the file from his jacket slowly, to show her curious eyes that it was the manila folder, and then set it down onto the bar.

"Oh...that's right but-...a drink first." She looked to the bartender, "Some water? For my friends here?"

"Milk for me." B.A corrected to the bartender who moved wordlessly from the cash register, grabbing a few glasses.

"I want y'all to feel comfortable 'round me. Don't be so stiff." She smiled genuinely and Face caught the smile with his eyes and she radiated agelessly, years falling from her tanned skin in the dark atmosphere.

This was the sort of joint he'd accidentally hooked up with old widowed mothers whose sons were twice his age before and regretted having done so the next morning.

They took the waters gratefully, dust coated mouths and deceived minds.

Hannibal was hesitant, but she didn't look twice at the water, just stared down nervously at the file and after a few moments of inspecting his water, finally took a drink.

He didn't taste anything funny, or feel any different.

Murdock was the most unconvinced, holding the water in his hand and watching her every move, every quiver of her body. She picked up the photo ontop of the manila folder as the others took drinks from their glasses, following Hannibal's lead.

Murdock wanted to yell at them not to, to stop being so easily convinced. But they didn't know what he knew. They saw a local and commonly frequented bar and a woman who was nervous as she picked up a photo of her murderous husband. They saw a hoodwinked woman who was scared and lonely and desperately in love with someone she'd have to learn to hate. A sort of romanticism that you could get caught up into. Sure. Like a movie.

Murdock knew, however, that look and her stiff rigid posture and her eyes- they'd been sad.

Of course, though, she'd be sad. This was her _husband_ she was losing. Someone she'd instilled so much trust and hope and love into for years and years only to be back-stabbed and-

_"You are crazy after all." _Murdock reminded himself, _"You're just imagining things. Remember what the Doc said about all the paranoia? It's eating at you again, H.M Eatin', eatin', eatin'. Like a feast."_

In an attempt to get a reign on his mind, to end the paranoia and the fear and the distress, he put a single hand around the glass and brought the glass to his lips as he watched her face contort in sadness at the picture.

"That's him...my husband..."

She picked up the newly poured shot, looked at it, and then licked her hand. Shaking salt onto the fresh saliva, licking it up, biting a lime, and slamming back the drink, she swallowed and let a tear escape her eye.

Murdock, at this, tilted the glass back and drank the water.

It didn't taste funny.

It didn't feel funny.

_He _didn't feel funny.

He raised the glass a little towards her in gratitude and she smiled towards him.

"Wanna do a line?"

Murdock looked at her curiously, wondering if this was some code he wasn't told about, and then as she brought her purse into her lap, he realized what she about to do and cleared his throat, eyes blinking owlishly and shaking his head, "N-No. Thanks."

"Oh, c'mon, sugar plums. Ya' all look..._nervous_." Her word was chosen carefully and she looked to Murdock with intense eyes, watching him his Adam's apple bob in his throat uncomfortably, and she smiled, pushing away a tear gathered in her eyelid, "One line." Her voice seductive, sultry and-

"On the job, remember?" Hannibal reminded her carefully with a steady gaze, but the tenseness they could all see through the jacket had disappeared and they all took a breather, keeping enough of a front to remind themselves she was still under suspicion. "Mrs. Basil, you gave us these files. Did you read them before bringing them to us?"

Blainely turned her attention from the razor blade box and the thumb sized thimble of cocaine in her palm, giving him a look that asked what he was attempting to insinuate, and that was a guilty verdict as far as Hannibal was concerned. He saw the indignation just by the way her eyes darkened and her eyebrows flinched downwards in that angry sort of scowl he'd seen on the faces of too many he'd confronted.

It was a look of defeat, a stab to the ego.

_"Slice, dice." _Hannibal thought with self-pride beginning to rise, but he burst that balloon before it could inflate any further in his head.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, were concerned about the address on these papers. It's a reference for your husband to contact, and the mailing address is-...well, here. Look for yourself. It's this bar." Hannibal opened the folder, and pointed to the little bottom right corner of the first page.

She looked at it carefully, as though she were searching for deceit, and he flipped to the next page by the corner to show her the same address was on every page, in the right hand bottom corner.

Her frowned deepened. "Interestin' but not exactly relevant, Colonel Smith." She murmured, plucking a small white rock from the little baggie and set it down onto the bar. She picked up the small razor, carefully beginning to chop.

"Slice, dice." She whispered and Hannibal watched her eyes intent on the chunky powder, hitting it again and again with the razor until it was nothing but a fine grain. "Colonel. Colonel." She murmured, "You were a colonel."

Hannibal didn't respond.

"And you." She pointed towards Face, "The Faceman. I read about all of y'all, you know. Much as I could find out before hiring you. You were a lieutenant with a lot'a your record showing recon. Hmmm..." She drawled, "Only men they'd send to do that're good at lyin' through their wicked-ass teeth. Good at lying, huh? Suits your style I suppose..." She looked to B.A, picking a hundred dollar bill from her clutch and pointing toward him with it , "A sergeant with a bad attitude. That what your initials really stands for? Bad Attitude? Oh, it's written all over your files. 'Bout what Sergeant Bosco Baracus broke today and what-not in a fit'a rage."

She was drunk and loose, slurring together he sentences and her shaking hands surrounded the line of coke like a protective mother.

She didn't know what she was really rattling on about, but she was angry at the insinuation that she understood Hannibal was making towards her. She couldn't help but feel offended at him suggesting she was trying to hood-wink them when she attempting to catch a hood-winker herself. Weren't they there to _help _her?

Then her eyes rested on Murdock and he waited carefully, offering a smile at the brief pause she provided.

He wondered: Was she trying to rattle him? Break him? Get him to reveal something under the pressure?

It was working, almost. He could feel the weight on him, like an elephant on his chest and his heart just couldn't beat much longer with the strain and-

"And Captain H.M Murdock...hell, even your files say _H.M _and half of them were too secure to look at. The other half just talked about useless shit. Best pilot in Vietnam, though? Ain't you just fuckin'_ honored_, sugar plum..."

Her words had continuously been bitter, but especially bitter were the ones thrown to the pilot and she snarled.

"Blake said the guy _he_ was with was the best-"

...pilot in Vietnam?

She went silent, only mouthing the last words.

Murdock's mouth quivered.

She knew.

The rolled up hundred dollar bill was in between her pointer finger and her thumb, her nose just millimeters from it and the end of the bill was just on the edge of the line.

The jacket.

The best pilot.

Fellow Texan. His _Texas Brother_.

How could she of been so blind?

And if she thought back hard enough, she could remember the letters.

_'The guys call him Howling Mad.' _

Her blood ran cold at the same time Murdock's did.

"You." She whispered, and then she was blinking, shaking her head, "You?"

She looked to him with dry lips and careful eyes.

"You?" She repeated.

"Texas." Face said placidly with a raised eyebrow and Hannibal nodded at the code word.

"Alright, Lady. We'll just be re-scheduling this little get-together, alright? Try to be sober next time?" Hannibal stood from the bar stool and Face followed emphatically.

"Uh, let's just try and not make the meeting in a bar. I think that'd be the best for..err...Mrs. Basil." Face offered with a smile that could almost be sympathetic, but he just looked to Hannibal and shook his head laughing a little beneath his breath. "People, huh?"

Hannibal grabbed a cigar out of obvious disappointment with the way the case was going, thinking back on when he'd accepted it and if money had been the main influence or if he'd truly felt bad for the woman who'd made her first appointment with Mr. Lee a little off her rocker, breath smelling like alcohol.

He'd felt bad for her, somewhere deep inside, but the money she waved around could've easily been a contributor to his quick conclusion to take the case.

Maybe she'd offer them a raise when the hangover came and with sobriety it occurred to her she'd been a drunk fool the day before and had obviously set them back yet another day. Oh yes, Face could calculate how much time and money had been wasted that day and-...

"Don't take another step! Just wait a second!" She slammed her hand against the table, cocaine rose from around her hand like steam, coating her skin. "You. You." Her voice shook and she pointed towards Murdock who sat on the bar stool still, eyes unable to meet hers. "You done it...didn't you? You...You killed him."

The others looked to Murdock in mild surprise, but figured his shocked expression was due to him not knowing what she was talking about.

She was speechless, mouth opened like a fish and eyes scanning over his thin frame, "My God...you did do it..."

"Blake was my friend, honest. I...It was an accident. We were ambushed and-"

She gave a sad laugh, "Fucking excuses...what did I expect from a coward?"

"He was one of the best and it was unfai-."

"He died under your command and-...the way he _talked _about you and this is what I get."

"Captain, care to explain?"

Murdock looked up, and realized somewhere between the fighting, he'd stood up and he blinked away memories that threatened to surface again. He was scared to look into his eyes- would he see disappointment? Disgust?

All he saw was a hardened form of curiosity, confusion written across his frown as he looked between the two of them. He cocked his head, sticking his cigar back into his mouth with piquing interest.

His breath was shaking and a little unsteady, "...Her...Blake was..."

"He killed my brother, you fucking..." She grabbed her clutch, pulling from it a handgun and pointing it towards the captain, "...coward. Couldn't even tell me all this time. You _knew _he was my brother and..."

The other three men quickly pulled their own firearms out, pointed towards her.

She looked towards the rest of the bar that was attempting to make heads or tails of the situation, not phased by the sight of guns. But they were the usual crowd. Tattered bikers and cowboys alike, sitting in cliques that were split by left and right sides.

To the left were the cowboy and right were the bikers.

"This cowardly son of a bitch killed my brother! Don't y'all remember 'im? And they-" She pointed with her gun towards the other three of the team, "they're protectin' him!"

Guns were drawn hesitantly, but with trust and Murdock knew what it was. She was rich and her husband was well-known. Who were they to ignore his woman when he _was _the law, he _was _the enforcer of morale, he _was _your God if he so wanted to be called it.

And everyone knew everybody, just like he'd said before.

"An explanation at any time'd be nice, Murdock." Face said pleasantly, beginning to lower his gun as he heard the familiar click of a cocked gun ring out all around the bar.

Murdock was silent, looking to Blainely, "I didn't...I didn't kill 'im."

"What would you call it then?" She bit back, her gun still pointed towards his forehead, "Huh? What would _you _call it? You left him. You abandoned him."

"If there's one thing I know I didn't do, it was abandon him." Murdock was livid, "I never left him."

"Liar!"

"Look...just... you don't know what happened. You don't-...You don't know _anything _about what went on! Blake never did tell you the full story in his letters- don't you get it? He was only tryin' to protect you and...and..."

"Blake never kept _anythin'_ from me."

"You wouldn't want to know what Blake and I-..." He shook his head at the words and sighed in acute aggravation, "Blake was scared if you knew what we had to..." Murdock shook his head again and the anger and pent up frustration was evident, "There's things you _couldn't_ understand and Blake knew it. We all knew in 'Nam what're folks back home wanted to hear and didn't wanna hear. I mean, c'mon! Would _you _wanna hear 'bout burning bodies and...I mean none of us wanted to..."

_'Basil? Basil!'_

_'I'm gonna get you home, Pal...'_

_'Basil, just...wake up, Buddy...'_

When he came from the trance, she was standing over him, the pistol almost to his forehead.

He swallowed.

"It's so...it's so complicated, the whole thing...It wasn't fair, what happened to Bas- I mean, Blake. He was-"

"Just stop." She whispered, and when he looked up, he realized she was crying.

The pistol was so close and he leaned his forehead against the metal to her surprise. She opened her eyes at the contact, looking down to meet his gaze but found the bill of his hat blocked her view.

"You can shoot me- but...nothin' gets better with revenge."

For a second, he was sure she'd loosened her grip on the gun.

"Says you."

There was a yell, he was sure of it.

There was a bang, but did he imagine it?

"Murdock!"

There were three of those, one was very soft and followed by a running charge against the floorboards.

There was darkness, spiraling, falling, sounds of war surrounded and blanketed him.

The swoosh swoosh swoosh of chopper blades.

_'Oh sugar, ah honey honey.'_

He was falling.

Down, down, down.

And when he hit the ground, and opened his eyes, he saw Basil.

* * *

**Word Count: 8,571**

**World Level: AHHH!**


End file.
